German-chocolate-cake-14
By Kristyne McDaniel
Recently I was surprised to learn something very interesting about chocolate cake. Being a lover of chocolate cake, I'd have to say that I'm an expert, at least in my own mind. Not one to be found baking a cake that often, I do give it a try every now and again. One of my favorites is German chocolate cake. However, I had really no idea that the cake doesn't necessarily list German chocolate as one of its ingredients. Dessert is a favorite in my house. When my children were younger, I'd use it as a bargaining chip. Promising them a piece of cake or a slice of pie if they finished their dinner was really effective when I wanted them to eat their peas and carrots. Back them the only German chocolate cake I made came from a baking mix. I guess I just assumed that if it said it was German chocolate that it was made from it. I've discovered as of late that making my own desserts from scratch is much more rewarding. Cheesecake has proven to be a challenge as I was always ending up with a wonderful tasting treat with a large crack down the surface. The same is true of meringue pies. I just couldn't seem to get the topping to look exactly the way it does in the recipe's image. So I decided to move onto cakes. I've experimented

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with a red velvet cake, a butter cream cake and a German chocolate cake. Chocolate seems to be a big favorite with everyone, most likely because of its rich and exotic taste. I do have to admit that when I first decided to tackle a German chocolate cake recipe from scratch I wondered where I'd find the German chocolate. Every recipe I found actually called for cocoa powder. This hardly seemed very German to me so I decided to do a bit of an investigation. I'd been to Germany years ago and was able to purchase real German chocolate so I wondered why it wasn't a requirement when making a cake with the same name. It seems that the recipe itself never utilized actual chocolate made in Munich or Hamburg. It was actually the brand name of the chocolate originally used when the German chocolate cake was first invented. Since I first tried to bake my own cake I've come to an important realization. For all the trouble I put in measuring the flour and the sugar, creaming the butter and the eggs together, the cake itself didn't taste all that much different than the German chocolate cake I made from the baking mix. So back to the mix I went and now I can serve this special treat to my family without all the extra work.