German Chocolate Filling & Icing

An all time favorite of my Father's is this German Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing and a decadent coconut pecan filling.

German Chocolate roots can be traced back to 1852 when American baker Samuel German who developed a type of dark baking chocolate for the Baker's Chocolate Company. The brand name of the product, Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, was named in honor of Samuel German ... So, June 11 is National German Chocolate Cake Day in America.

This frosting/filling is made by putting 1 Egg, 5 oz of Evaporated Milk, 2/3 Cup sugar, 1/4 cup butter in a sauce pan and cook until thick and bubbly (this usually takes about 6-8 minutes). Remove from the heat and add your 1/2 cup of chopped pecans and 1 1/3 Cup coconut flakes and let it come to room temperature, it will thicken more as it cools so don't worry.

For the chocolate frosting, we will make the Italian buttercream icing and add 1/4 Cup of Dark chocolate cocoa powder to 3 Cups of your frosting mixture. If you're making more than a 8" Cake then you might want to use the entire batch of Italian buttercream and mix 1/3 Cup of dark cocoa powder and whip it good until it's incorporated.

Italian Butter Cream Recipe:

To start you will need room temperature Egg whites, room temperature butter, 1/3 cup of sugar, 2-3 dashes of cream of tartar to get a nice firm egg white peak. You'll also need 1 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of water for step 3.

Step 1 -separate egg yolks from the whites (it's very important to not get any yolk in this or you will not have a happy ending...) Put the egg whites in the mixing bowl. Make sure your mixing bowl has NO grease residue, if you're not sure, get a lemon and use the inside of the lemon to wipe the inside of the bowl to remove any grease and wipe with a clean paper towel. Put a pinch of salt and cream of tartar goes in with the egg whites and start mixing on low and gradually increase the speed until you get soft peaks. Then sprinkle slowly the 1/3 cup of sugar in the mixer while mixing, if you pour it all in at once it can cause the peaks to deflate! You don't want that. Step 2 - turn the heat on the stove with the 1 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of water and once it comes to a simmer and looks clear take it off the heat (if you have a candy thermometer you will remove it once it reaches 240*F this usually from my experience takes about 4-6 minutes) and drizzle slowly into the mixer to incorporate into the fluffy egg whites while the mixer is on medium high (this will cook the eggs to give them a marshmallow fluff texture and taste. Once it's all incorporated, keep mixing on medium speed until the mixture has come to room temperature (this will be about 30-45 minutes, you can speed up the process by packing the bowl with frozen peas or ice and will reduce to 10-15 minutes). Now you will turn up the speed to medium high and start adding your room temperature butter small pieces at a time until all 4 sticks are combined. It may look like it starts to get soupy, don't worry, it will come together I promise! After you get the 4 stick combined, in a matter of minutes you will see an immediate change in consistency and it will start to look like buttercream! Don't worry you can't over whip buttercream, beat it until you get the consistency you desire. You can store this in the freezer for a few months or in the fridge for a few weeks in a sealed container. Always bring to room temperature and whip it again though before use to bring it back to life. :) Scroll through the photos above to see step by step what it will look like.