German Chocolate Cake with Coconut-Pecan Sauce

Despite the title you’ve just read, I’d like to talk about ricotta cheesecake for a minute. One of my favorite places to eat in New York is Becco, and that is mostly because of their ricotta cheesecake. When Quinn asked what I wanted for dessert on my recent birthday, I really wanted to try to duplicate it. After a quite thorough search of the web, my cookbooks, and the bookstore’s cookbooks, I never found a recipe that seemed quite right. So, we dove in and made one anyway. It was not good. At all.

That’s how we ended up with this German chocolate cake for my little birthday celebration. Quinn did most of the work on my behalf, but I couldn’t resist helping out. He whipped up the cake, and I made the sauce.

This kind of cake is one of my very favorites. Coconut and pecans are two of my favorite things, and to have them combined together on top of chocolate cake… Well, how can you go wrong? I’ll tell you how. Not everyone likes coconut and pecans. With some encouragement from my dear friend Tonya (thanks, by the way), I came up with a solution in the form of this recipe from Southern Living.

The coconut-pecan component is a sauce that can be ladled onto the cake when it’s served. So, in deference to the non-coconut-ers and non-pecan-ers, there were alternative toppings. Quinn made some kind of caramel sauce. Honestly, I wasn’t in the kitchen at the time, and I have no idea how he did that. I also made one of my stand-by sauces, a white chocolate-raspberry sauce that’s shown up on this little blog before.

The result? I got the cake I wanted for my birthday (if we’re not counting my initial quest for the ricotta cheesecake), and everyone else got something they liked, too.

By the way, if anyone has recommendations for a ricotta cheesecake recipe (preferably like the one at Becco), I would love to hear about them.

Yield: 20 servings

German Chocolate Cake with Coconut-Pecan Sauce

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

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Ingredients

For the cake:

• 2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup (75g) unsalted butter
• 4 ounces (113g) sweet baking chocolate, chopped (either German's or semisweet)
• 1 & 1/4 cups (250g) granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup (118ml) water
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 large egg

For the sauce:

• 1 & 1/2 cups (250g) granulated sugar
• 2 & 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 12 ounces (340g) evaporated milk
• 3 tablespoons (42g) unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup (40g) chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup (21g) flaked sweetened coconut
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

To make the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9"x 13" baking pan.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Place the butter and chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in the microwave at half-power in 30-second increments until the butter has melted and the chocolate melts when stirred. Stir until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.
4. Combine the sugar, water, and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate mixture. Whisk in the egg whites and the egg.
5. Add the flour mixture, stirring just until combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan.
6. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until a pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

To make the sauce:

1. Place the sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the milk. Add the butter.
2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture boils. Continue cooking for 1 minute.
3. Remove from the heat. Stir in the pecans, coconut, and vanilla. Serve warm over slices of cake.

Notes

Recipe adapted from Southern Living and MyRecipes.

Recommended Products

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