The Dord of Darien

1 tbsp All-purpose Rhubarb

German chocolate cake, bitches. I found this recipe in bumming around the internet, and had to try it out. Normally, chocolate cake doesn’t do much for me, but I’m a huge fan of German chocolate cake, what with its fluffy texture and coconut-and-pecan filling and all, and this recipe just looked fantastic (even if his history of the name is somewhat… fanciful).

Turns out it’s actually very easy to make, albeit time-consuming. I had a bit of trouble with the icing, but I’m fair sure that’s down to my fuckup and not an issue with the recipe itself; everything else was punch and pie. As far as I’m concerned, the most difficult part is making the custard for the filling, since the recipe rather glosses over the details and just sort of assumes you’re familiar with making custard. In practice, though, that’s not much of a problem, since it’s really not at all delicate. Unless you stop stirring it. So don’t.

He also doesn’t go into detail on the process of toasting the coconut and pecans, but that’s really quite simple: to toast the coconut, put it in a large, shallow pan (a frying pan will do nicely) with no oil or butter or worcestershire sauce or anything, then give it low to medium flame, and shake it frequently. It’s done when it’s tan instead of white. The pecans are the same exact process, except that since they’re already tan, you’re looking for them to darken somewhat. Unsweetened coconut can be a bit harder to find than you may expect, and you may end up getting soaked by having to buy some "organic" bullshit, but them’s the breaks. Also to note is that if you buy chopped pecans for baking, you’ll probably want to chop them a good deal smaller for this purpose, unless you fancy half-pecans in the centre of your cake.

Do yourself a favour and use an electric mixer for creaming the butter and mixing in the dry and so forth — some people will tell you that it’s better done by hand and that electric mixers are the devil’s work, but they’re just luddites. Ignore them. Do not, however, attempt to fold the egg whites into the mixture with the electric mixer; folding is meaningfully different from plain old mixing, and if you just run the whole thing in the mixer you’ll get a very dense, uncharismatic cake. If you want the proper light, fluffy texture, you need to fold. It’s not hard, I promise. You’ll also need to make sure you get those egg whites properly stiff-peaked — only cowards and sissies would ever whip eggs with an electric mixer, since stiff-peaking egg whites with a baloon whisk is the way Real Men do this kind of Women’s Work.

Anyway, this cake is great. It’s so delicious and moist!

December 3rd, 2008 Posted by Darien | Recipes | 3 comments