German Chocolate Cheesecake: Day 2

On to day 2! Friday I made the German Chocolate cake and one batch of icing. The cake and icing recipes that my mother-in-law is famous for are not a family recipe as you would think... They are on the back of the German Chocolate bar found in the baking aisle in the grocery store!!! To make either German Chocolate cake or German Chocolate Cheesecake you need 2 batches of icing. Supposedly doubling the recipe doesn't work, so you have to make it twice. And it does take FOREVER. 

First I mixed up the cake.

1 pkg (4 oz) Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate

1/2 cup water

2 cups flour

1 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 cups sugar

4 eggs, separated

1 t vanilla

1 cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk, add 1 T lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup milk, let stand 10 min)

Coconut-pecan filling and frosting

Preheat oven to 350. Cover bottoms of 3 (9 inch) round cake pans with wax paper. Grease the sides of the pan. Microwave chocolate and water in large microwavable bowl on High 1.5 - 2 min until chocolate is almost melted. Stir after 1 min. Stir until chocolate is completely melted.

Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in melted chocolate and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating until well blended after each addition.

Beat egg whites in small bowl with electric mixer on high until stiff peaks form. Gently stir into batter. Pour evenly into prepared pans.

Bake 30 min or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Immediately run small metal spatula around cake layers. Cool in pans 15 min. Remove layers from pans to wire racks. Discard wax paper. Cool cake layers completely.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the cake process. It's pretty easy and only took 30 minutes. Now on to the icing.

4 egg yolks

1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk

1 1/2 t vanilla

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) butter or margarine

1 pkg (7 oz) flake coconut (2 2/3 cups)

1 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Beat egg yolks, milk and vanilla in large saucepan with whisk until well blended. Add sugar and butter. 

Cook on medium heat until thickened and golden brown, stirring constantly. The recipe says to cook for 12 minutes, but it takes about a half hour. You can tell when the butter browns the icing gets darker. You don't have to stir for the entire half hour, just after the butter is melted it will really start bubbling. Then you will have to stir, stir, stir. Remove from heat. Add coconut and nuts. Cool. I used walnuts instead of pecans, because that is what we had. Here's the finished icing.

Also, I only used half of the bag of coconut for one batch of icing. Kellen doesn't like coconut a lot so I limited it a little. Then I just used the rest of the bag in the second batch. The cake and the icing have to be cold before you put the cake tomorrow. Assembly is next!!!