German Chocolate Cake Isn't From Germany
07-31-2023, 12:12 PM
#1
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Mendocino Coast, CA
Posts: 4,921
German Chocolate Cake Isn't From Germany
I've been researching cake recipes all week, hoping to find that perfect cake for the county fair. I had to laugh though, when this food blogger went on and on about how her recipe had been handed down through her ancestors for many generations and originated in Germany. She even explained that you have to use only the finest chocolate from Germany. She went through an entire page waxing the poetic.
:::sigh:::
If she only knew that German Chocolate cake didn't originate in Germany. It was originally called, "German's Chocolate Cake," because the German's Chocolate Company, (a subsiderary of Baker's Chocolate, an American enterprise,) created the recipe and put it on the back of their packaging, hoping that it would help sell more of the chocolate...and it did! It was also distributed in newspapers and magazines. The recipe was created by Mrs. George Clay, a native Texan, in 1957. There are other chocolate cakes of German origin, but not the classic German Chocolate Cake. It's American through and through. It has a very distinctive flavor that is not the same as a devil's food, or other chocolate cake. To this day, it is one of my favorite cakes.
:::sigh:::
If she only knew that German Chocolate cake didn't originate in Germany. It was originally called, "German's Chocolate Cake," because the German's Chocolate Company, (a subsiderary of Baker's Chocolate, an American enterprise,) created the recipe and put it on the back of their packaging, hoping that it would help sell more of the chocolate...and it did! It was also distributed in newspapers and magazines. The recipe was created by Mrs. George Clay, a native Texan, in 1957. There are other chocolate cakes of German origin, but not the classic German Chocolate Cake. It's American through and through. It has a very distinctive flavor that is not the same as a devil's food, or other chocolate cake. To this day, it is one of my favorite cakes.
Last edited by tropit; 07-31-2023 at 12:17 PM.
08-01-2023, 02:19 AM
#3
Super Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 2,213
I love German Chocolate Cake and even made it for my birthday yesterday. But I have always known that it can't be German in origin because coconuts don't grow in Germany! Not sure if pecans do either. Still, I love the topping/icing.
08-01-2023, 06:35 AM
#6
Junior Member
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Walker Missouri
Posts: 199
I've been researching cake recipes all week, hoping to find that perfect cake for the county fair. I had to laugh though, when this food blogger went on and on about how her recipe had been handed down through her ancestors for many generations and originated in Germany. She even explained that you have to use only the finest chocolate from Germany. She went through an entire page waxing the poetic.
:::sigh:::
If she only knew that German Chocolate cake didn't originate in Germany. It was originally called, "German's Chocolate Cake," because the German's Chocolate Company, (a subsiderary of Baker's Chocolate, an American enterprise,) created the recipe and put it on the back of their packaging, hoping that it would help sell more of the chocolate...and it did! It was also distributed in newspapers and magazines. The recipe was created by Mrs. George Clay, a native Texan, in 1957. There are other chocolate cakes of German origin, but not the classic German Chocolate Cake. It's American through and through. It has a very distinctive flavor that is not the same as a devil's food, or other chocolate cake. To this day, it is one of my favorite cakes.
:::sigh:::
If she only knew that German Chocolate cake didn't originate in Germany. It was originally called, "German's Chocolate Cake," because the German's Chocolate Company, (a subsiderary of Baker's Chocolate, an American enterprise,) created the recipe and put it on the back of their packaging, hoping that it would help sell more of the chocolate...and it did! It was also distributed in newspapers and magazines. The recipe was created by Mrs. George Clay, a native Texan, in 1957. There are other chocolate cakes of German origin, but not the classic German Chocolate Cake. It's American through and through. It has a very distinctive flavor that is not the same as a devil's food, or other chocolate cake. To this day, it is one of my favorite cakes.
08-01-2023, 08:03 AM
#7
Super Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: British Columbia
Posts: 8,113
It has been years since I made it, but for sure the cake takes a backseat to the topping/icing 😃
08-01-2023, 08:42 AM
#8
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Mableton, GA
Posts: 11,252
Just give me a bowl of the frosting and I'm happy. Daughter in law periodically sends me a container of her special chocolate frosting made from scratch that her mother used to make. Frosting on a spoon. Yum.
08-02-2023, 02:27 AM
#9
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 2,213
I have some left over and think it might be good as a topping for ice cream...
