German Chocolate Cake for Dad

It is my Dad's birthday (Pi Day) once again, so I was trying to decide what rendition of a German Chocolate cake I would make this year. For months I've been reading about filled cupcakes, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try to make some. I found a recipe that sounded good (from Bon Appetit it had to be good, right?) and was planning to make the modifications suggested in the comments. It seemed, however, that I would run into several problems along the way.

1. In trying to find German chocolate, I was just not going to be successful. After 3 different grocery stores I gave up and decided to use a mix of semi-sweet and dark chocolates.
2. Get back to my mom's house only to find just 1 cupcake sheet (with spots for 6 cupcakes). Deciding this would take WAY too long, I gave up on my filled cupcake idea and decided to just bake a cake.
3. I decided to roast the pecans to give it a better taste, but my Dad arrived home while they were in the oven. Thus I forgot about them until I smelled smoke! Oh no! Fortunately, I had some left over, but nowhere near how many the recipe called for. Oh well.

The ingredients:


The cake came out pretty well, though I did have to pour the frosting on before I was able to let the cakes really cool. Not the greatest idea, but I needed to get out of the kitchen. The icing was sinful (and I am not even a big GC icing fan) - my Dad couldn't keep his fingers away from it (guess I know where I got it from)!

The finished product:


As a gift I got him a PC mixer and software (you can hook up a turntable or tape player to your computer to turn your old media into digital music) which he was pretty excited about too!

German Chocolate Cake - Dad's B-day

My Dad LOVES German Chocolate Cake like none other. However, noone in my family ever liked it much so he didn't normally get it as his birthday cake (sad!) when I was growing up. Therefore, now that I'm an adult, and have no clue what to buy him for his birthday, I've started a tradition (this year being the 3rd year) of getting him a GC cake and bringing it in to work (since we work together) and doing the whole singing / celebrating thing there. The past two years I've bought him a store bought cake, and even though I had them write "Happy Birthday" on it, it just felt a little trite. So this year, I decided I'd try to make him a home-made one.

Needless to say, it got rave reviews. My Dad said it was one of the best GC cakes he'd ever eaten (hey, at least he's complimentary even if it wasn't true) and I was proud b/c I've really been trying to make things not just taste good but be pretty too.

Here's the final cake:



I made a little one for Brad too while I was at it. I know I spoil him, but isn't that what girlfriends are for? =)