German Chocolate With Homemade Coconut Pecan Filling
To be transparent, I never had German Chocolate Cake until I made this. But, as it went with macarons, I fell in love. WOW. I was perusing the interweb trying to find the differences between chocolate and german chocolate cake and I didn't think they would make that crazy of a comparison but german chocolate cake is SO unique! Give this a go and let me know.
This recipe can make 5 HEFTY 6" layers, or 4 8" layers. If you plan to make this with 6" layers, I would insert a dowel FOR SURE and as a heads up, this baby was 12" tall.
FORMULA - CAKE
Unsalted Butter - 1 1/2 sticks or 174 grams
Semi-Sweet Baker's Chocolate - 6 oz
Boiling Water - 3/4 cup
Baking Soda - 1 1/2 tsp
Salt - 3/4 tsp
Eggs - 6 large
White Sugar - 400 grams
Brown Sugar - 200 grams
Vanilla - 1 1/2 tsp
Buttermilk - 1 1/2 cup
Flour - 375 grams
NOTE: All ingredients should be at room temperature.
FORMULA - FILLING
Sweetened Condensed Milk - 1, 14 oz can
Egg yolks - 3 large
Unsalted Butter - 1 stick or 116 grams
Sweetened Coconut Flakes - 1 1/2 cup
Chopped Pecans - 1 cup
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Boil water in a small pot, once it gets to a rolling boil, pour the water over the semi sweet chocolate in a small heat proof bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes and add the vanilla. Whisk to combine. Set aside to cool.
Cream butter in the bowl of your stand mixer for 3-5 minutes.
While the butter is creaming, sift the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Add in both sugars and continuing on medium speed for about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides as needed.
Add in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed.
Once the eggs are thoroughly mixed, add in the water and chocolate mixture.
Finally, alternate the flour mixture with the buttermilk. Preferably in three separate rounds, start with 1/3 of the flour mixture (roughly) and end with the buttermilk mixture. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Mix on low medium for about 30 seconds after all has been added to ensure it's combined.
Spray your baking pans or line them - your preference. I choose to use PAM Baking Spray. Divide the batter evenly among the pans. If you're using 6" pans, it will be 5 pans with roughly 400 grams. Make sure they're at least 2" deep pans. If you're using 8", you can divide in to 500 grams for 4 layers or 666 grams for 3 layers.
Bake for roughly 35-50 minutes depending on the size of the pans. Check the pans at 30 minutes and gauge how much longer. You will want to bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack in the pans for 15-20 minutes. Turn out of the pans and continue cooling until lukewarm. Saran wrap and place in freezer until needed.
DIRECTIONS - FILLING
Pour the sweetened condensed milk, add the yolks and cube the butter all in to a medium sized saucepan.
Cook over medium heat while stirring constantly.
In roughly 8-10 minutes the mixture will start to bubble and the bottom of the mixture will start to pull away from the bottom when you're stirring.
Remove saucepan from the heat at this point and dump in the coconut and pecans. Stir well and let cool completely before filling.
NOTES:
I used Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bars that I found at my grocery store. You may find Baker's bars in German Sweet Chocolate. Use your preference.
For the buttercream, I used a standard chocolate buttercream like the one in my Blackout Stout. Sub the black cocoa for unsweetened cocoa powder, omit the bourbon and use powdered sugar to taste and consistency!