Sinful German Chocolate Cake

It was my sweeties birthday yesterday and of course I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, anything at all. We had been watching the Food Network a few days before and Bobby Flay was making an incredible German chocolate cake and he said THATS MY CAKE! ... oh boy. I had no idea what went into making this decadent treat. It is certainly lots of steps if you want it to be completely home-made... but let me tell you, it was worth it. The cake itself came out SO moist and fluffy and the coconut/pecan frosting was a sweet buttery glaze. I finished off the cake with an easy chocolate ganache, some toasted coconut and pecans to decorate. 

Total Time: around 2 hours, i took my time. 

Ingredients:
FOR THE CAKE:

• 4 eggs, separated 
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)
•  1tsp vanilla 
• 2 cups sugar 

• 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate AKA one bar of Ghirardelli chocolate in the baking aisle

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• 2.5 cups cake flour (I used this one)

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• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 round cake pans
• Parchment paper
• Butter Pam

FOR THE COCONUT PECAN FROSTING:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 3 lightly beaten egg yolks
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes 
• 1 cup chopped pecans 
• 1 tsp vanilla

FOR THE CHOCOLATE GANACHE:

• 1 bag of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp vanilla  

Directions:

FOR THE CAKE:

• Take the eggs out and let them sit and get to room temperature. 
• Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees
• Line the cake pan bottoms with parchment paper and spray the pan with Pam. Set aside. 
• In a saucepan, melt the Ghirardelli chocolate bar and water over low heat; cool. 
• In a mixing bowl, add the softened butter and sugar and mix until light and fluffy. 
• Add egg yolks, one at a time beating well after each addition. 
• Add chocolate mixture from the saucepan and vanilla. Mix well. 
• In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. 
• Add to the creamed mixture alternately with the buttermilk , beating well after each little bit you add. 
• In another small mixing bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into batter.
  
• Pour the batter evenly into the cake pans and place into the oven, set your timer to 45 minutes. 
• After 45 minutes stick toothpicks into them and check to make sure they come out clean without any wet cake batter on them. My cakes took about 48 minutes. Take them out and allow to cool completely. 

FOR THE FROSTING:

• In a saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, egg yolks and butter.  Cook and stir constantly until it starts to thicken. 
• Remove from the heat and stir in coconut, pecans, and vanilla. 
• Stir until frosting is cool and achieves spreading consistency, don't get scared, it will be pretty liquidy and not as thick as you would imagine. 
• Lay one cake down on the serving plate and top it with half of the frosting. 
  
• Stack the next cake on top and frost the top of that one. Its going to look gorgeous, like this!

At this point, you can leave it as it is, its going to taste amazing! However, it was my guy's birthday and he likes rich chocolatey-ness so I decided to make a ganache. 

DIRECTIONS FOR GANACHE:

• In a small saucepan, over medium heat, combine cream and butter.
• Heat until bubbles appear around the sides of the pan, but don't let the cream boil.
• Stir in chocolate and vanilla and remove from heat.
• Stir the ganache until the mixture is smooth and a little bit cooled down. 
• Pour this amazing mixture on top of your cake!

I then set the oven to 400 degrees and laid out some coconut flakes on a cookie sheet. I baked that for about 10 minutes until the coconut started to brown. 

To finish off the cake, top it with the coconut flakes and decorate the top edges of the cake with pecans. Wowowowow... so rich and amazing. Careful with the sugar coma, we were definitely in one! Make sure to have some milk handy to wash this all down with! Enjoy xoxo