The Origin & History Of German Chocolate Cake

A German Chocolate Cake With Chocolate Frosting.

I used to think that "German Chocolate Cake" was a German pastry, but I was wrong!

In 1977, when I was a teenager, my family would spend many weekends and holidays at our cabin at Big Bear Lake, in Southern California. Near our cabin was a tiny German restaurant, The Black Forest Cafe, owned and operated by Karl and Erma Herchert. I had a lot of fun helping this wonderful couple tend to the tourists and locals that visited their restaurant. One weekend, I was proud to arrive at the restaurant with a homemade German Chocolate Cake. I thought that the Hercherts would be pleased to have a German cake on the menu. I was surprised, and a tiny embarrassed, when they told me that the cake was not German! (They still enjoyed it, even though it wasn't offered to the cafe's patrons.)

Erma & Karl Herchert (and me) 1979

 The roots of German Chocolate Cake can be traced back to 1852, when an English-American Chocolatier, Samuel German, created a mild dark baking chocolate for the American Baker's Chocolate Company. The  company honored Samuel by naming the new chocolate Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate. 

Baker's German's Chocolate Bar

In 1905, a recipe appeared in Trenton, New Jersey, for "Novel Chocolate Cake" that featured the new sweeter baking chocolate. In 1956, Piggly Wiggly Super Markets in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, advertised a "German Chocolate Cake Roll" in the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern newspaper. In April of 1957,  a Texas newspaper, The Daily Journal of Commerce published a school cafeteria menu that included "German Chocolate Cake", but no recipe for the cake appeared in the paper.

A century after Baker's German's Chocolate was created , in June of 1957, the first published recipe for German's Chocolate Cake was the featured "Recipe Of The Day" in the June 13th edition of the Dallas Morning Star newspaper.  The recipe was submitted by a local Texas homemaker, Mrs George Calay. (Poor Mrs. Calay.....we don't know her first name! Thankfully, times have changed.) 

The cake quickly became quite popular, and it's popularity spread throughout the USA , when the owner of the Baker's brand, General Foods, distributed the recipe to newspapers all around the country. This campaign is said to have increased sales of Baker's German's Chocolate by 73%, as Americans fell in love with the cake. Subsequent publications dropped the possessive form (German's) and the cake became known as "German Chocolate Cake", which caused the mistaken impression of the recipe being of German origin. 

In 1964, General Foods redesigned the package for German's Sweet Baker's Chocolate and included a recipe for "German Chocolate Cake". (Today, Kraft Foods owns the Baker's brand and the package has a recipe for "German Chocolate Cupcakes" printed inside the box.) There are a few variations of the recipe for this two or three layer chocolate cake with a caramel, coconut and pecan topping and filling. Traditionally, the sides are left unfrosted, but sometimes a chocolate frosting is spread on the sides of the cake and piped around the circumference of the top and bottom of the stacked layers. Occasionally, Maraschino cherries are used to garnish the top of the cake.

In America, June 11th is "National German Chocolate Cake Day". That day, and any other day, would be a perfect time to enjoy a slice of this American cake!

For my favorite German Chocolate cake recipe, please visit: 
http://carriekitchencreations.blogspot.com/2016/06/german-chocolate-cake_14.html

A traditional German Chocolate Cake