German Chocolate Cake

I don't make cakes just to make cakes.  Although I would love to wake up every Saturday and make a cake, letting it sit prettily upon my countertop, an open invitation promising hospitality to all who come near my kitchen, my sense of responsibility towards the health of my family prevails and cake becomes an occasional treat while a bowl of apples harvested from my generous neighbor's fruit-laden tree sits on the counter.

I read about a word association study once, where researchers asked Americans what they thought when the heard the words "chocolate cake."  The most common response was one of guilt.  The researchers asked French citizens the same question on chocolate cake, and the common response was one of celebration.

I'm with the French response on this one.  Cake is not an everyday, even an every week food, as much as those frequent office parties with those terrible supermarket cakes like you to think otherwise. The idea of snack cake, something my grandmother would often make, keeping extra pieces of that frostingless sweet (yellow and chocolate cakes) in her chest freezer, does not make a frequent appearance in my household.  Instead, cake is usually reserved for celebration, and when cake comes around, it is something to be relished. I love to make a layer cake on birthdays, flavor of the birthday boy's choosing.  Making a cake from scratch in preparation of a celebration is a joy unto itself.

Kent always wants German chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting.  It's a funny cake, really; I don't think coconut is considered a traditional German food along with bratwurst and schnitzel.  This combination is undoubtedly a product of the 1950's domestic era of America, when coconut probably became widely available and seemed exotic to home-bound housewives. But it is good.  Really, really good.  And as a nod to that 1950's cooking mentality, I swiped Kent's birthday cake recipe right out of Better Homes and Gardens. You can get the recipe here.

Happy birthday, love.