Giving Zetta What She Deserves

It's that time of year again--time to bake a german chocolate cake for Zetta.

July 8, 2006
Occasion: Zetta's Birthday!
Name of cake: German Chocolate Gooey Cake
Constituents: two layers dark chocolate cake
filled and frosted with coconut-pecan goop

The cake came together nicely, no big mishaps or whooziwhatsits. Just a few minor incidents that really weren't that big of a deal.

Everyone marveled at how dark and chocolaty the cake was, and I'll tell you now that's because I use Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder. It makes the batter look this sickly dark gray color but results in cakes that are almost black and super tasty.

I powered through the mixing and baking portion of the cake process late the other night which may be my excuse for why I did the following:

As I turned one of the cakes out of the pan to cool, I left it top side down on the baking rack until fully cooled. I didn't think anything of it. Until I tried to wrap the cake up before going to bed, when I realised that not only was the cake thoroughly stuck to the cooling rack, but that it had kind of sunk into the rack. And when I went to try and pry the cake off, it split into a couple of pieces. So I laid the piece of the cake that I had in my hand on the saran wrap, and put the rest of the cake back together as best as I could, wrapped it up, and went to bed.

betcha can't tell which cake layer is the one that fell apart!

I didn't throw a tantrum, which was great!

So this coconut-pecan frosting stuff is really fascinating. Every recipe I found online only makes enough to frost one layer. Aren't you supposed to frost both layers with the stuff?

The Goop (enough to frost two 9 inch cake layers)

• 14 oz (2 cans) sweetened condensed milk
  
• 6-7 egg yolks
  
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
  
• 2 cups toasted chopped pecans
  
• 2 2/3 cups toasted coconut, preferably unsweetened
  
• 2 tsp vanilla

You take the milk, egg yolks, and butter and you are supposed to heat them over medium heat, stirring constantly, for about 10 minutes, until bubbly.

Well let me tell you: when you are heating up something that has egg yolks in it that you don't want to curdle, you probably should warm them up gently. Which means it may take you a bit to get to medium heat. And once there, you may stir for 15 minutes and never see one bubble. You may notice that the goop gets a little thicker, but you may also realise that you've been standing and stirring constantly for at least 30 minutes and not care about bubbles anymore.

At this point, you dump the goopy shit over the chopped, toasted pecans, and the (optionally) toasted coconut, add your vanilla, and let it cool for more than the 15 minutes they suggest before slopping it on the cake.

Ta-da! ECL's first published recipe!

The goop was still goopy when I went to frost the cake, and as I was happily frosting the sides, I noticed that the goop was sloughing off the cake and gooping around the bottom of the plate. Huh.

Instead of getting all in a tizzy, I put the cake in the refrigerator and wandered off for a bit. I think I even took a shower.

bowl of goop in the background

After a while, I took the cake out and began to fix the goop, which at that point readily agreed to stick to the cake without much fuss. Off I drove, Zetta's German Goopy Cake enjoying the air-conditioned ride over to her house, and when I arrived I received a warm welcome, so nice! But in afterthought, I think the happy reception was for the cake itself, as the cake's arrival was announced but not necessarily mine...

I must say, I was still in recovery from Tuesday's Popsicle Party that I couldn't even finish my slice of cake. But I did finish the homemade hazelnut gelato that came with it (thanks Thursday) and I did eat 1.5 pieces of EvilPieLady's tomato-frickin-yum-tart.

T-F-Y-T

Damn good foodin' wit' ya'll, and a happy happy birthday to the lovely Zetta.