I Finally Did It!!

I know I've been promising for a while now, and I finally did it! I made German Chocolate Cake! I actually made 42 miniature German Chocolate Cakes, a bit smaller than cupcakes. I'll give you the full rundown in a second. But first, I have to celebrate a few successes from tonight. First, I successfully made my first from-scratch German Chocolate Cake! (Look out Mom, you *might* have a contender) Second, I successfully beat eggwhites until stiff peaks formed for the first time ever!! (Which is actually VERY surprising considering how humid it was in VA Beach today) So, here it is, my first German Chocolate Cake:

These were VERY labor intensive, so if you're looking for a quick dessert, don't do the mini cakes. But I'll tell you how I did it...

I use the Baker's German Chocolate recipe that's on the package when you buy the bar of chocolate (Baker's is the brand name, and it's sold in a green box). It's my favorite recipe for German Chocolate Cake, though the only one I've ever made myself (as made obvious by my statements above). I am taking these to work, so I didn't want a messy slice of cake, and I also thought that full-sized cupcakes might be a little hard to manipulate over a keyboard without leaving gooey coconut and pecan icing everywhere. So I decided mini cupcakes would be perfect...but I didn't like the pictures of them that I saw online. Miniature cupcakes have a slight taper outwards as they go up (like a normal cupcake), which makes it a little more difficult for layering, they don't get very thick, and (to me) they are not very asthetically pleasing. So I decided to use miniature cheesecake pans (I make a lot of cheesecakes so I had a few of these pans laying around). Miniature cheesecake pans have a dozen cups, like a cupcake pan, that are about 1 3/4 inches in diameter - but don't quote me on that.

After pouring the batter into the cheesecake pans, I baked them for 17 minutes each, one pan at a time. If you decide to delve into this little baking adventure, keep in mind that my oven bakes hot, so you may need to adjust your baking time accordingly.

When they were done baking I allowed them to cool - in the pan - for 5 minutes before removing the little cakes from their cups, and then allowed them to cool completely. Oh, this reminds me - don't use any baking cups or parchment paper when you bake them. Just make sure to spray the pan with a baking spray before pouring in the batter.

When they were cool enough to hold form, I sliced each one into 3 even slices (thus the labor intensive part, as there were 3 and a half pans of them to "torte"). I then put each one in its own cupcake liner (I used square liners, for the aesthetic value, but any will work) and put approximately 1/2 teaspoon of icing between each layer and on top. More or less icing can be used according to preference - with this amount I ended up with 8 mini cakes that didn't get icing.

From my husband: "Oh yeah, these are good. Definitely as good as your mom's..."

Piece of advice

I was stupid last week. I picked up something heavy, it slipped, and I tried to catch it. Needless to say, that resulted in a back injury, and I haven't been able to get around to making my German Chocolate Cake yet. Best intentions to make it this weekend. I was just daydreaming about baking (literally) and played out some unpleasant baking scenarios, which led me to bring to you some [hopefully] very useful advice:

Stick to what you know, and experiment on your own time.

It is much easier to tell someone that you can't do something, rather than telling them "Absolutely!" and then later having to explain to them why you can't accomplish the request. If someone asks you, "Can you make a butterscotch and bacon cheesecake made with ricotta cheese," and you've never tried it, do this: make a note of the (in this case undesireable) combination, and gently reply, "Unfortunately that is not in my repertoire, but I have several other selections..." Then, when you've mastered this combination on your own time and your own dime (meaning not with a customer's money), feel free to call them back and let them know that their wonderful confectionary invention has been added to your menu. If the customer really wanted that cake, they will be honored (and hopefully excited) that you felt their idea worthy of a place on your menu, and be all-the-more-likely to recommend you to their friends.

I hope this advice helped, in some small way, and I *PROMISE* there will be a cake next time. Oh, and also, tell all of your friends about my blog :) Personally, I totally thinks it's worth the read.