Hello World! (I always hated writing those Hello World programs in my programming classes back in the day) So this is my first blog post and I figured it only appropriate to write about the most recent happening.
Well my Grampa turned 75 this past Monday. My family decided to celebrate with a nice family dinner at my Aunt’s house. Naturally, I volunteered to make the cake. I mulled over what to make for weeks. I consulted my Mom about it and she thought German Chocolate might be nice. I still thought about it for awhile and finally decided it was the way to go. Not being an expert on German Chocolate Cake I consulted my current go-to spot for baking recipes. The Joy of Baking website. They always seem to have a basic recipe for exactly what I need. I used this recipe with very few tweaks.
I decided to go with a caramel filling. I made that by microwaving sweetened condensed milk until it was thick and caramelized. This would also be a good time to mention that it took three tries to make this filling… apparently the first microwave I tried was entirely way too powerful and burned the caramel twice! Finally I used a slightly less powerful microwave (which I affectionately refer to as “piece of sh*t”). I’m surprised my friend who was helping me out that night didn’t kill me during this process. That didn’t happen and I finally got the filling done. I mixed in some toasted coconut and pecans and bam filling done!
The frosting, I changed that too. I made some bittersweet chocolate ganache, let it cool and then whipped it up into a nice smooth frosting.
I decided to make some roses for the top using modeling chocolate. This is the first time I have ever worked with it and I have to say it was quite easy. Mine came out a bit sticky but sticking it in the fridge over freezer for a few mins solved that temporarily. This is a great tutorial for the first timer! Overall I would the say the results were pretty fabulous! 🙂
Grampa and everyone else at dinner loved the cake, I paired it with some Coconut Saffron ice cream. I used David Lebovitz’s recipe. I made two modifications, I added some homemade vanilla extract and some rum flavoring. That’s it! I don’t have pics of it but I will definitely make it again!