The months of December and January are birthday season around here. Five out of our family’s total ten birthdays are within the space of these two months, so we have a lot of birthday stuff going on around here.
Though all of our little people have surprisingly good taste with birthday cakes (I mean, really. Lime bars for the 11 year old and a chocolate/coffee cake for the soon to be 4 year old?) my favorite is still my dad’s choice of birthday cake.
It’s sort of a mix of two cakes: German chocolate cake and our family’s traditional chocolate chiffon cake. Hence, german chocolate chiffon cake.
So, I took pictures and typed up the recipe to celebrate all the birthdays around. Eat cake and think birthday wishes, everyone. š
German Chocolate Chiffon Cake
Cake:
Ingredients:
2 eggs separated
1 Ā½ cups sugar
1 Ā¾ cups sifted flour
Ā¾ tsp. salt
Ā½ cup olive oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
Ā¾ tsp. baking soda
- Preheat oven to 350*F and line two round pans with parchment paper.
- Beat egg whites until frothy. Gradually beat in Ā½ cup sugar and continue to beat until stiff and glossy. Transfer to another bowl.
- Sift remaining sugar, flour, soda and salt into mixing bowl.
- Pour in oil and half of buttermilk. Beat 1 min. medium speed and add remaining buttermilk, egg yolks and melted chocolate. Beat 1 min.
- Fold meringue into batter.
- Pour into pans with parchment paper lining.
- Bake 30-35 minutes.
- Cool layers completely.
Filling:
Ingredients:
3 large egg yolks
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
4 Tbsp. (Ā½ stick) butter, cut into 4 pieces
1/8 tsp. salt
1 Ā½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 Ā½ tsp. vanilla extract
Ā¾ cup pecans, toasted and chopped
- Cook the egg yolks, evaporated milk, sugar, butter and salt in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture is boiling and slightly thickened, about 6 minutes.
- Transfer to a bowl and stir in the coconut and vanilla. Let cool for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours or up to 3 days. Stir in the pecans just before using.*
- Place one of the cake layers on a serving plate. Spread about half of the filling over the top, pushing the filling to the very edge. Gently lay the other cake layer over the filling and spread the rest of the filling over the top, leaving the sides of the cake bare.
*note: Okay, I seriously didn’t notice that whole “chill for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days” part until typing it up.Ā I just walked away at the “refrigerate until chilled”. So, it’s obviously that that’s one of the more lenient rules. Don’t sit by the fridge with your watch to your face waiting for the perfect timing or anything.
And the alternate topping for that cake is whipped cream with chocolate milk mix whipped in. That’s easier and still quite good if you have less time on your hands for the german chocolate stuff. š
Well, hope you enjoyed and tell me how the cake turns out if you make it!
~writefury
writefury 
Mmm, that looks good!! I’ll have to make it sometime! We have 3 out of our 9 birthdays in March: 19th, 27th, 28th, and the 31st (that’s one of our two dogs š ).
You’ll have to tell me how you like it! š
Wow! Man, that’s packed in there. š Mine’s on March 18 and my baby sis is turning 2 on the 19th.
I will!
And that’s awesome!! I’ll be 14 on March 19.
And in November, there’s 3 of my aunts/uncle and my mom all in a row! š
Sweet! š So you were born the day after I turned 3… I actually remember that day. I thought something seemed special and different about it! š
Nice! May is the birthday dump on mom’s side. Mom and my aunt and uncle all have their birthdays then. š
Awesome!! š
Yeah … our birthday dumps are Nov., Aug., and March. š
Oh, come now!! I was scrolling down, anticipating a beautiful shot of the pile of dishes!! Didn’t you get one? Seriously – people should be forewarned.
That looks AMAZING!
Thanks! š
Is this… *gasp* It is! How’d you find out my secret weakness? GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKE…
I want some now *sniffles*
I want to do a story where the Doctor ends up getting “gotten” by the Monster of the Week right off and Oliver stands in for the Doctor for the whole episode and it ends with him rescuing the Doctor (maybe the Doctor got caught in an inexplicable parallel dimension made of paper–again. What is it with this show and trapping people in artwork!?) What might make it even funnier if Oliver’s internal monologue is in the Doctor’s voice, so though it’s technically Doctor-lite it still has the Doctor in it. X-D
Could you maybe write a sample of script and email it to me and then we’ll work on it together? I really want to write this now X-D Also, I’m working on the script with Oliver’s debut right now, so we’re moving forward on that front–hooray!
Oh, and I just saw Ant-Man. It was awesome. X-D Have you seen the blooper where Paul Rudd uses some language and whispers “She didn’t hear that” and then the little girl leans back and looks at him seriously and says “I heard that”? THAT WAS TOO ADORABLE! X-D
I didn’t know that was your weakness, but MWAHAHA, I’VE FOUND IT NOW! XD
Sounds fun! š It would be fun to write something with Oliver. I think it might be easier if this was *cough* set on Earth. Or some other setting that you could explain to me. š
Yay! š I love Scott so much. š Yeah, I think I saw that. SO CUTE. XD Him and Cassie are about the cutest thing ever.
Okay! Set on Earth it is. Hey, let’s have it be Earth in 2016, and Oliver (who is from the 51st century) is a little confused by our “quaint” ways. X-D He’s at home there, but he’s a little out of touch. He’s a fan of some of our current bands, but forgets and mentions one that’s in our future at one point. ;-D
Oh, and I want to write in a scene (not necessarily in this script, but eventually š ) where the Doctor is eating something while talking to Oliver and Oliver finally gets frustrated and says “Would you stop that?” and the Doctor says “Stop what?” in an adorably bewildered fashion and Oliver says “Please stop eating while i’m talking to you.” “I’m hungry,” the Doctor protests, to which Oliver replies “You’re always hungry.” X-D
YESSSSSSS :-3 The part where he’s going to sacrifice himself for Cassie is the best and saddest part of the movie *cries* Served Yellow Jacket right! He imploded and I’m GLAD. EVIL SOB WENT AFTER THE HERO’S KID AND IF HE WASN’T ALREADY DEAD I’D PUNCH HIS LIGHTS OUT.
OH YESS! Best setting idea ever! š I have so many ideas now… *scribbles furiously*
Gosh, I have exchanges like that with Daniel all the time. Except it’s that he’s fidgeting with something, not eating. Clicking pens and such and he doesn’t even notice. XD I could easily stick in moments like that.
I KNOW IT WAS SO SAD AND SWEET. He was right there and couldn’t even say goodbye. She’d pretty much never know what happened to him. š„ But the way it ended with them anyway was so sweet. š
Oh my goodness, Yellowjacket is such a jerk. A smart jerk, too. Which is even worse. >:/ No one’s made me that mad since Simpson.
š š š
Okay, so for now let’s just make the MacGuffin a simple thing–like a malfunctioning transmat (teleport) that traps the Doctor in a limbo where he’s saved in the attached computer as data but doesn’t actually “exist” in the material world at the moment, per se.
Yes, by all means. The Doctor has a lot of restless energy. š
*sniffles* And the giant ant! X-D
HE IS!!! *growls* And slightly deranged–he started two-dimensional and you couldn’t see who the villain was going to be–then they fleshed him out and it was AMAZING. š
So, Oliver is hauling around this laptop with the Doctor in it, basically? *lots of ideas*
TOTALLY. He was really well done. I mean, usually villains are either understandable or nasty, and he walked the line in between both.
More like… a computer core that sort of holds an imprint, a “data ghost” and it’s probably not compatible with anything else. š
YES. What’s with bald baddies though? We need more bald goodies!
Oh. Hmm… So he’s trying to find something compatible with it to try and get the Doctor out? And he probably can’t run the TARDIS, so 2016 was sort of the crash landing year…
Well, one bad guy cliche was excusable. š
Well… he’s trying to find the other end of the transmat, since the first one was fried. He might not have seen this tech before, but he’s probably smart enough to figure it all out. Also, the Doctor was poking around with it and that’s how he got halfway-teleported. š
And no, no one but the Doctor really knows how to pilot the TARDIS. It’s a telepathic ship and if you can’t contact it properly it’ll probably kill you with the psychic backlash (I believe that they call that ability to bond with a TARDIS the “Rassilon Imprimatur.” Which is idiotic and pompous at the same time, because “Imprimatur” literally means ‘let it be printed!” Rassilon was an idiot. Also a jerk. And the Doctor is still sort of under his orders, so whoop de doo.) Oliver is, as a companion (humans have some latent telepathy), already bonded to the TARDIS in a sense, but he most likely wouldn’t be able to handle the high-output calculations that time travel takes–my thoughts on how TARDISes work is that the Time Lord works together with the TARDIS to work out how to get there and then feeds those completed calculations through until they rematerialize. The Doctor never figured out how to properly “fly” the TARDIS, but his trial and error is pretty good because the TARDIS itself is telling him what to do. But it’s possible that TARDISes can also perform those calculations on their own and they have the console interface to sort of communicate with the passengers. In which case, though, Oliver hasn’t learned how to pilot the TARDIS and probably can’t think loudly enough at her to tell her where he’s trying to go.
Or, wait! The transmat was faulty and sent the Doctor to who-knows-where, where he’s in danger (possibly trapped underground?) He manages to tell Oliver that using his link to the TARDIS but it’s not enough for them to perform any sort of jiggery-pokery or anything. So, Oliver has to defeat the bad guys and save the Doctor on his own!
X-P True.
Oooooohhh!!! O_O I really like that new idea a lot. š
Woo hoo! Whump. X-D
I’ll probably go write the beginning on the rush, then try and work out the rest with you. š
Okay! š