Another year, another tweak for the non-dairy version of German Chocolate Cake. As always, I began with the original German Chocolate Cake recipe which you can find at this link. Last year’s tweak used soured coconut milk to replace the buttermilk. This year, I put 1 tablespoon of vinegar in a measuring cup and added Coffee Rich (original, not fat free) to the 1 cup mark. As always, I used Earth Balance vegan buttery sticks in place of the butter.
The biggest and best tweak of 2015 was made to the frosting. Last year, I used coconut milk in place of the evaporate milk, and it was an improvement. But the frosting taste thin, not as rich and creamy as I wanted. So this year’s substitute was coconut cream for the evaporated milk, and it made all the difference. (Coconut cream is a little harder to find than coconut milk, but higher end supermarkets and ethnic Asian and Mexican grocery stores stock it.)
The cake was served at Mom’s 87th birthday bash alongside the dairy version to the delight of myself, my daughter, and her husband since we all have issues with dairy. We couldn’t do the ice cream, but the frosting was so creamy we couldn’t have cared less. The frosting recipe is below, and again you can find the original German Chocolate cake recipe here.
Easy Coconut-Pecan Filling and Frosting
3/4 cup canned coconut cream 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup Earth Balance vegan sticks
1 teaspoon vanilla 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 1/3 cups shredded coconut 1 cup chopped pecans
Combine milk, sugars, butter and vanilla in a sauce pan. Bring to a full boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. (Mixture may appear curdled.) Quickly stir a small amount of hot mixture into the egg yolks; then pour that mixture back into sauce pan. Return to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add coconut and pecans. Cool to spreading consistency, stirring occasionally.
*Cookbooks tell you to frost between the layers and on the top of a German chocolate cake, but not on its sides. Mom always frosted the sides (it’s a little tricky) to keep the cake moist.
