Friday, October 1, 2010

David Lebovitz Recipe - German Chocolate Cake

After my first German Chocolate Cake I decided never again.  Way too complex and too many steps.  That is until my sister wanted one for her birthday.  It is her favorite and how do you say no?  Nothing is too good for my sister, especially since she spent last weekend helping me bail water out of my flooded home and shoveled mud off my sidewalks and scrubbed the bathrooms and floors.  So I sought after the best German Chocolate Cake Recipe in the world.  David Lebovitz is a renowned and respected pastry chef,  He has received acclaim in such publications as Bon Appétit, Chocolatier, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking, Food+Wine, Gourmet, Condé Nast Traveler, Cook’s Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times, People, Saveur, Sunset, and USA Today. And yes, that was him in People magazine, with Paula Abdul.
He has appear on national television programs such as Gourmet magazine’s Diary of a Foodie on PBS, the Discovery Channel, NBC’s Today Show, and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel.  I was surprised when researching German Chocolate Cake to find out that it has noting to do with Germany.   This is his recipe and I cannot take credit for any part of it. This thing took me 7 hours to make! David Lebovitz' recipes are typically very involved with many steps. This was no different but well worth the effort for that special occasion. The German Chocolate cake was not brought to the American Midwest by German immigrants. It is an American creation that contains the key ingredients of sweet baking chocolate, coconut, and pecans. The cake took its name from an American with the last name of "German." In most recipes and products today, the apostrophe and the "s" have been dropped, thus giving the false hint as for the chocolate's origin. 
1852 - Sam German created the mild dark baking chocolate bar for Baker's Chocolate Company in 1852. The company name the chocolate in his honor - "Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate."
1957 -The first published recipe for German's chocolate cake showed up in a Dallas newspaper in 1957 and came from a Texas homemaker. The cake quickly gained popularity and its recipe together with the mouth-watering photos were spread all over the country. America fell in love with German Chocolate cake.

This recipe is highly modified from the original and uses heavy cream, rum and bittersweet chocolate.  Here is mine and it is absolutely delicious!