Birthday Redemption

Two years ago I was part of The Daring Kitchen, and the August challenge was Dorbos Torte. It had chocolate and caramel, it was fancy, I thought why not make it for my husband's birthday? Well, it wasn't one of my more successful experiments, and he still teases me about what a lousy birthday cake it was.

So this year I decided no more experiments for his birthday, I'd make his favorite, German Chocolate Cake. (Recipe from The Joy of Cooking.)




Oops. Thankfully I put the cupcakes underneath, otherwise I would have had an enormous mess. (Evidently I packed my cupcake pans already. Wishful thinking, I guess.)

That wasn't the first mishap. For some reason both cakes completely stuck to the pans. I should know better than to to skip the parchment paper when I'm baking a cake with so many egg whites.


I was chatting with my friend Leslie from Curried Cupcakes, and she suggested "Make a trifle!" Brilliant idea!



I looked up some recipes online just to see how others had translated German Chocolate Cake into a trifle, and several of the recipes included pudding as one of the layers. That didn't interest me at all, so I decided to mix the pecan-coconut filling with freshly whipped cream, then layer that with the cake and some toasted coconut and pecans.

I'm pretty sure I've redeemed myself in the birthday cake department. Thanks again, Leslie.