The best German Chocolate Cake | Chewy and Crunchy

Hi guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel and fun informative recipe tutorials. If you love learning about cake baking and want to know all of my insider baking secrets, please subscribe to my channel and turn on your notifications so you know when I'm posting new videos. Now just a little bit of housekeeping here, I have started a brand new video series on my channel called Two Minute Tuesdays. These will be coming out as you guessed it on Tuesdays once every fortnight or two weeks. I'm so excited about them because they are a completely different format from these ones. It takes two minutes to watch, give or take a few seconds, and no talking and no nonsense, just pure recipe. It's a great way to learn some of my super simple recipes super fast. Actually it's probably the best option. On to the tutorial. Today I'll be showing you how to make German chocolate cake. I have got to say this is one of the tastiest cakes if you love a bit of texture. I can't think of a better combination to put in a cake than chocolate, coconuts and pecans together. They all just give each other a nice hug from the inside, especially when you take a bite into it, you're immediately enveloped with that eye-closing, mouth-watering, crunchy, chocolatey, roasty, beautiful flavour. Do you know what I mean? So let's get to it. This cake has three cooking components to it. The chocolate cake itself, the coconut pecan custard and the chocolate ganache icing. Now both the filling and the icing need to cook on the stove then have a few hours to cool completely. So it's a good idea to make these two components the night before making the actual cake. So we'll start off with the chocolate ganache and it's a super simple recipe so I'll direct you to my 2 Minute Tuesday video on that recipe. On to the second component of this recipe which is the German custard filling. This will take patience my friends because you will need to stand at the stove and mix this constantly for about 10 to 12 minutes so that the custard doesn't curdle. Now remember you're adding egg yolks that have a highly coagulant protein in them but we want that protein to take its time in thickening and not seize up immediately when the heat hits it. I'll show you a fantastic tip to make sure that it does not happen to your custard today and ever again in any custard that you make. Gather all of your ingredients for the German chocolate icing. Butter, evaporated milk, white sugar, egg yolk, salt, vanilla essence or extract, shredded coconut and roughly chopped pecans. Please do not use the desiccated coconut in this recipe. It's just too fine and we're looking for the roughness of a shredded coconut to give us that texture. Same with the pecans. Don't buy pecans that are ground or too finely chopped. I choose to buy the pecan halves and chop them myself to control the size of my rough chop. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, melt the butter, evaporated milk and sugar together. Don't take it any further than a melt. It doesn't need it at this stage. Remove the pan from the stove and turn off the heat. Add your vanilla then set your pan aside and grab your yolks and a medium-sized glass bowl. Pour the yolks into the bowl then gradually whisk all of your hot milk mixture into the bowl. This is called egg tempering. You're bringing your egg yolks up to a warmer temperature in a gradual way rather than tossing them into a boiling liquid where they'll almost surely start to curdle before you have the chance to mix them in thoroughly. Then return your saucepan to the heat and stir constantly and I mean constantly using a wooden spoon or silicon spatula for 10 to 12 minutes. Now you'll want to do this in three lots of four minutes. So the first four minutes go low heat, second you go medium and the third lot of four minutes you go medium high. Now if you find that the medium high is too much and your custard starts to spit and bubble violently, turn it back down to the medium and give it another four minutes on medium. It doesn't matter about the heat really, it just matters that you're giving it enough time to thicken. Once you reach the 10 minute mark your custard should be looking lovely, thick and smooth. If it coats the back of your spoon like this then we're good to go. Add the salt and mix then add your coconut and pecans. Look at the beautiful yellow and brown colours popping in there. If your custard starts to look a little more brown than this then it may be because your pecans are too finely chopped. It won't affect the way the cake turns out so don't worry. Pour it into a dish and set aside to cool completely. Now finally the third component of this cake which is the actual chocolate cake. Gather your ingredients, butter, sugar, warm water, eggs, vanilla essence or extract, choc chips, plain flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. If you don't have buttermilk then use milk with a bit of lemon juice or vinegar. I'll put the recipe for making buttermilk in my description below. I never buy buttermilk anymore, it's just too easy to make. Start your cake by melting the chocolate chips in the microwave in short 20 second bursts or over a warm bain-marie. You want the chocolate to still be warm but not hot or it will melt your butter. Cream your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Please don't rush this step, it'll take a good five to ten minutes depending on the temperature of your butter and whether it's summer or winter. See how it looks like a big clump of raw butter at the moment and gradually as the beater incorporates air and it heats up due to the friction caused, it starts to turn lighter in colour but also consistency. Still a ways to go, as you can see it still looks grainy and quite yellow. Keep going. Now before I add the egg, see how beautifully pale, creamy and light my butter and sugar have become? That's what I want yours to look like and if it doesn't then stop what you're doing and put it back on and give it another minute or two. So I'd like to give you a little bit of history into the name of this cake because it's quite misleading. This cake is not from Germany. What? What do you mean it's not German? It's called German chocolate cake. Why would they call it German chocolate cake if it's not from Germany? I don't know. Do I look like I invented the German chocolate cake recipe? No. Go ask Google if you want to know who invented it. Who do you think I am? An expert? Well you're doing this tutorial so yes. German chocolate cake is actually a southern American invention and not from Germany. It was named after an Englishman living in America by the name of Samuel German. Now initially Samuel German started working as Walter Baker's coachman, the owner of Baker Chocolate Company in Dorchester, Massachusetts. But from 1839 he asked Walter if he could work inside of the factory making the chocolate. So he did this. Samuel German developed a chocolate that mixed sugar into the liquid chocolate that he then poured into the moulds and it was sold as the company's first sweet solid chocolate bar ready to eat for the general public. And so German's sweet chocolate bar was born. Back to the actual recipe. So it was invented by a Mrs. George Clay from southeast Dallas, Texas who mixed the sweetened chocolate bar melted into the cake batter. Then she paired it with the coconut pecan custard and called it German chocolate cake. She entered it into the recipe of the day column of the Dallas Morning News. It was published on the 3rd of June 1957 and ended up going viral. The sale of German sweet chocolate bars soared and the rest is history. Add your eggs one at a time and mix it so there's no trace of it left before adding another one. The reason for this is because we want to build up a complex netting structure from these fats and proteins. But if you add everything all at once the proteins won't incorporate as willingly into the fat cells and the cake won't be as light and airy. There is a science to baking and it's maddening for sure but once you know the basic principles it does get easier. Look at that bowl of heaven. Add your melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Gradually add your warm water until it's fully incorporated. Sift your flour, baking soda and salt together to ensure even distribution. This is so that one side of the cake doesn't rise higher than the other. Then you'll alternate adding your flour mixture and the buttermilk making sure to scrape in between every few additions. Look at this sexy batter. It's light, it's fluffy, it's fully incorporated and begging to be baked. Scale the batter into three pans equally. Using a scraper to smooth the top which helps bake an even cake. I'm using eight inch round pans but it will work just as well if you've purchased nine inch round pans too. Only difference will be the baking time. Then gently tap the bottom to get any large air pockets out of it. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees Celsius for roughly 25 to 35 minutes or until the middle of the cakes are just firm enough to handle the pressure of your finger and bounce back ever so slightly. After you've cooled your cake layers it's time to put all of your hard work together. Start by taking your baking paper off of the bottom. Hot tip of the day. Watch how I lift the paper back not up. This prevents your cake from sticking to the paper. Give each layer a generous amount of icing. It will take a bit of time and patience to smooth the icing down into a flat top but just take your time with it. Manipulate your palette knife back and forth like I do and see how I have my hand and fingers on the metal part not the handle. This gives me better control of my tool. Now comes the ganache. It needs to have a smooth soft consistency otherwise you risk having torn cake edges. If it's too cold then try to warm it up over a bain-marie. I'm building the sides up so I can drag it across my cake for a smooth sleek finish. If you have a long scraper use it to create super smooth cake sides. Pipe some rosettes along the top and garnish with pecan halves. Ta-da! Looks delicious doesn't it? Delicious. There you have it folks. My ever popular recipe for German chocolate cake. I hope you liked watching it and learnt something new. Please click on the thumbs up icon, subscribe to my channel and turn on your notifications. If you have any questions write them in the comments below and I'll answer them as quickly as I can. Until next time tell the people closest to you that you love them. Bye! Oh no the camera's still rolling.