Chocolate Buttercream Cake (or Cupcakes)

Making this recipe happened for two reasons. The first, and most common reason I make anything, I've been wanting to try this recipe. And two, I still had quite a bit of the German chocolate cake frosting that I thought I'd try on another variety of chocolate cake.

As I sit her on my computer and look and a ton of different blogs and cooking websites searching for new recipes to try, across the room sit my lonely cookbooks, just longing to have their pages flipped through. I have made a point of collecting some good books, but find that I barely look at them. So as a small goal, I want to try to cook out of them more often and then share the recipes with you. Here's the first one. This recipe comes from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, and while she has many different cookbooks, this is the original one. I have seen Ina make this cake in a tiered form on her show, and you can find the recipe online here. I was comparing that recipe with the one in the cook book, and it looks like she just doubled the recipe to make the larger cake.

I really liked this recipe. I actually don't have a ton of chocolate go to cakes, so was glad this one worked out. I made the recipe as written except omitted the coffee. I know the coffee just gives a depth of flavor, but I don't have coffee around, so I just omitted it.  I decided to put them in cupcake form, just for fun, and topped them with the left over frosting, and some new chocolate frosting (recipe to come). The recipe makes an even 24 cupcakes. Next time I think I will try this out in cake form.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
The Barefoot Contessa

Ingredients
1 3/4 all-purpose flour
1 cup good cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 extra large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanila extract
1 cup buttermilk at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream at room temperature
2 tablespoons brewed coffee

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together flour cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, on high speed, about 5 minutes
Combine the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee (if using) in separate bowl.
On low speed, add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture alternately in thirds, beginning with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture.
Mix the batter only until blended.

Pour batter into two 8-inch, butter and floured, round cake pans, or 24 cupcakes.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes on a rack. Remove from pans to finish cooling

German Chocolate Cake, Round Two

Happy birthday Brian. Yesterday was my amazing husbands birthday. He's younger than me by about three months, so I like it when we're the same age again. Last year I made him a German Chocolate Cake that was a huge hit and had requests for round two. I think I had a bit of beginners luck last year when I made it, it went off without a hitch. This year, while the end result was great, I had a bit of a time getting there. Last year I made the frosting the day before, and I would strongly recommend doing that. It's a lot to do in two hours I had. The cake wasn't going to be ready in time so Brian sent out a text message to his friends that included the words, "cake emergency" to let them know we would be running a little late. I had a hard time getting the frosting to thicken this time, but just a note, it definitely thickens up once you add the pecans and coconut. And my cakes took much longer to cook than last time. And while I was making it I realized I was missing some of the ingredients, so the birthday boy went to the store not once, but twice for me. He even cleaned up the house, for the guests, while I was destroying the kitchen. All in all it turned out to be a fun birthday, with just enough cake left over for the birthday boy to eat for breakfast this morning. Click the link below to go to my original post and recipe on German Chocolate Cake.
German Chocolate Cake Post

German Chocolate Cake

Monday was by husband Brian's Happy Birthday! I was so excited to celebrate his birthday this year. It's the first one we've been married for, and I got to make a new cake and throw a party! I asked Brian what kind of cake he wanted and he picked German Chocolate. I was up for the challenge. I have never made one before and was anxious to being my search the a recipe. I headed right over to food network to search it out. I expected to find a recipe from Ina and maybe a few others. I came across an episode of Throw Down with Bobby Flay where he challenged Harlem, NY bakery Make My Cake to a German Chocolate Cake throw down. Turns out I saw that episode and the cake looked delicious. Make My Cake actually lost the throw down, but I figured it must be a pretty amazing cake for Bobby to want to challenge it. So I went for it.

I made the Coconut/Pecan Frosting and a chocolate ganache the day before. I read over the recipe and it looked like a lot to take on after work on Monday before I had to serve it up that evening. Doing half of it ahead of time was perfect. Then the day of I just had to make the cake, which was very doable, and put it all together.


The coconut/peacan frosting was absolutely delicious. When I tasted it I figured if the cake didn't turn out too great it wouldn't matter because I would just slather it with the frosting and all would be well! I cooked it according to the recipe. I thought it seemed a little runny after the 12 minutes, but once it cooled (I refrigerated it over night) it was just the right consistency for a frosting. I toasted my pecans in a pan on the stove just for a few minutes. The recipe calls for a chocolate frosting to put around the outside of the cake, but her's is a secret family recipe that she didn't give out. I read through the reader comments on the recipe and a lot of people just used a basic ganache and said it worked out great. The recipe I used is below.


Again for the cake I followed the recipe as written. I started melting the chocolate and water in a make shift double boiler with a glass bowl and pan, but apparently my glass bowl wasn't heat proof and it cracked. (Mom it was that little one you gave me.) Yikes! So I carefully got rid of the broken glass and hot liquid and started again. This time in the microwave and it worked like a champ. I used the Baker's German chocolate as recommended. I beat the egg whites, which I had never folded into a cake before, but it definitely made the cake very fluffy and the other ingredients made this a very moist and delicious chocolate cake. And just the right amount of chocolate taste too! One thing different from the recipe, that I found, is that I didn't have enough batter to fill three 9-inch pans, so I just filled two. Not sure if that is a miss print, but it didn't matter. The cook temp isn't included so I just cooked it at 350 for a little more than 30 minutes until my toothpick came out clean.


When I put the cakes together I had quite a bit of the pecan frosting, and maybe that's because I didn't end up with three layers, but I used most of it and no one complained of too much frosting. I forgot to take pictures of the layers as I was putting it together and it was eaten up so fast once we cut into that I couldn't get any pictures then either. Oh well. I'd say the cake was a hit and made Brian's birthday. If you like German Chocolate Cake I strongly recommend giving this recipe a try.

Make My Cake German Chocolate Cake Recipe

Chocolate Ganache
4 oz semisweet chocolate, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1 tsp vanilla.
Melt chocolate and cream together on low heat until even, add vanilla, chill 15 minutes

Just a few pictures from the party. Brittany and I made this fabulous, if I do say so myself, Happy Birthday sign and hung it over the food table. Brian loves Henry Weinhard's Root Beer, so we chilled some of those and put them in cute bowls. My wrapping paper even matched the sign! It was a very successful birthday party.