Years ago my mom and dad created a cookbook of family favorites. It included this gem that I'm sure Mom found, but Dad makes. He has become the baker in the family since he retired. I love that this cake is moist, chocolatey and not too sweet.
You will get better results if you use an electric mixer instead of beating the batter by hand. (Kate, you can beat it by hand since you don't believe in using electric mixers.) Since there is very little leavening in this cake, you have to work a lot of air into the batter for it to rise properly.
Start by preheating the oven to
300 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan or two loaf pans (8 1/2 x 4 1/2).
Cream 2 cups of sugar and
1 cup (2 sticks) of butter. You need to beat this for several minutes or
until the butter is light colored and most of the graininess (is that
even a word?) is gone.
Can you see how much creamier the second picture is?
Add 4 eggs, one at a time mixing well after each addition.
Melt a 4 ounce bar of German Sweet Chocolate (you can find this near the chocolate chips) in the microwave in thirty second intervals. If the chocolate is almost melted, the heat in the bowl will probably finish the job, if you stir it a bit. Mix the chocolate, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, 1 cup of buttermilk, and 1 teaspoon of instant coffee granules into the batter.
A couple of notes here: If, like me, you grab a quart of milk instead of buttermilk, you can put one tablespoon of white vinegar into a one cup measuring cup and add milk to get one cup. If you don't have instant coffee, just leave it out. (The original recipe doesn't call for it.) For some reason, coffee makes chocolate more chocolatey without making the finished product taste like coffee.
Sift together 3 cups
of flour, ½ teaspoon of baking
soda, and 1 teaspoon of salt. (If you don't have a sifter, you can stir the ingredients in a large bowl, with a whisk.) Mix the dry ingredients into the batter with the chocolate chips, if you are using them. You only need to stir until all of the flour is incorporated. Over-mixing will toughen your cake.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s) and bake for 1 ½ hours.
(70 to 80 minutes for loaf pans.) Cool 5
minutes before turning the cake out of the pan. Wrap the cake in plastic wrap or place in a sealed cake keeper. This cake is unusual because it is wrapped while it is hot, which keeps the cake really moist. Cool completely before serving.
It was a good thing these got wrapped while they were hot, since I needed to take one to someone half an hour after they came out of the oven.
German Chocolate Pound Cake
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter,
softened
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsps vanilla
extract
1 pkg (4 oz)
German sweet chocolate, melted
1 tsp instant
coffee granules, optional
3 cups
flour
½ tsp baking
soda
1 tsp salt
1 bag miniature
chocolate chips, optional
Preheat oven to
300 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan or two loaf pans.
Cream sugar and
butter, then add eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla, buttermilk, and
melted chocolate. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Mix into batter with
chocolate chips if you are using them. Pour into pan and bake for 1 ½ hours.
(70 to 80 minutes for loaf pans.)
Cool in pan 5
minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and wrap or place in sealed cake keeper while hot.
Cool completely before serving.
These bars are moist and not too sweet., and closer to cake than cookies. The original recipe is from this cookbook that I have had for over twenty five years. I have used many of it's recipes in all of those years and definitely not just at Christmas. Even though I have always preferred savory foods to desserts, close to half of the recipes in my personal cookbook are desserts. I wonder why.
