Throwdown's German Chocolate Cake with Coconut-Pecan-Cajeta Frosting, Chocolate Ganache and Coconut Whipped Cream

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This cake is fantastic!!! You just want to wiggle and dance while you eat it in bliss! I am an avid baker and lost my old favourite chocolate cake recipe. Guess what people? This is the new favourite!!! It is moist and the ingredients are easy to get. I left the batter (which seemed really runny! Dont let that scare you for over an hour sitting on my kitchen counter to tend to my infant son and this cake still came out amazing! Thank you Bobby Flay from sunny Barbados where the sun is warming my skin and this cake warming my tummy!

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This cake is the moistest chocolate cake I have ever made. I completely changed the filling recipe with research and trail and error. But when it was all done it was worth the work. This cake not only won in a Bake off, it is consistantly a big hit.

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First of all I am not really into chocolate cake or pecans either for that matter, not even sure what sparked the desire to make a German Chocolate cake for thanksgiving, I guess Bobby just has a way in the kitchen, that makes anyone want to cook. This cake was by far the most expensive cake I have ever made, and yes it took what seemed like forever to complete. I started to become discouraged for a while because it took the caramel sauce quite awhile to reduce, but once I got my cake out of the oven and they came perfectly out of the pan, my confidence was restored. Yes I too noticed that the step to mix your wet and dry ingredients was omitted but I just figure at some point they had to be combined in order to get cake. LOL. I substituted the vanilla bean for extract and just used regular light brown sugar. I wasn't sure how well the cake would go over because the family is not really big on chocolate cake either, but they seemed to enjoy it. A few people said that the cake tasted like an Almond Joy candy bar. Well it was worth it, maybe this will be my contribution to thanksgiving dinner every year. Its to expensive otherwise. Thanks Bobby!!!

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This cake is fantastic and well worth the effort. Definitely expensive and time consuming, but just do it in parts and you'll be good. I did the filling two days ahead, then baked and finished the cake the day before, whipped the cream day of...it was wonderful! (and still great days after I made it when kept in the fridge This is not a recipe for a beginner...the caramel sauce is tricky - be very careful...when you add the milk to the caramel (do this slowly, it will bubble up on you - DO NOT walk away from it. The cake did go over the pans when filled about 2/3rds full - just adjust and fill them about halfway. Don't let the challenge discourage you, there is a reason this cake won the throwdown!

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First time baking from scratch, it took me 3 days basically, my wife and daughter laugh for how long it took , but after they taste the cake they stop laughing and complemented that it was delicious, I even send 1/3 to my other daughter in college to get her review and she and her roommate love it too. I first did the cajeta filling I couldn't find the vanilla bean so I just used 1 tsp of extract,neither the muscavado sugar so I just used natural turbinado brown sugar, this took almost 2 hrs to get the right consistency and I had to go to work. Next day I did the ganache no problem, let them sleep one more day. Next day I finish with the cake, I used two 9 X 2 3/4 inch pans no over flow, by the way I figure it out that I had to "just combined" the liquid mix to the dry mix to form the batter. When I was putting the cake together before each filling I sprinkle 1 Tbsp. of coconut rum to keep the cake moisture, my treat. After 3 layers I run-out of filling so I have to top it off with ganache. By the way my wife hate sweets so getting a good complement from her it was great.

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The cake tasted great. It took over 3 hours and at least $25. Not an everyday thing. The cake cooked up nice and I didn't have any over flowing problems. I see why this cake won the Throwdown.

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This is an extraordinarily delicious cake. I made this cake at my son's request for his 17th birthday just for our family and a few friends. It is time consuming especially when you add up all the time it took to round up the ingredients. I assembled the cake in 2 stages. Baked it one day, frosted and filled the next. My hats off to Melanie--I could never have put this together in 3 hours. I was concerned about the cake overflowing too. The batter is thinner than most and it nearly filled my 9 inch by 1 1/2 inch pans, but no overflow in the oven. I also had to bake it longer than stated--about an extra 12-15 minutes. Since a small slice goes a long way we had leftovers for several days. The cake holds up very well in the refrigerator, I would even say improves with a little time. If I do decide to make this wonderful cake again, I wouldn't hesitate to make it a day or two ahead.

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I made this cake at my daughters request for her 9th birthday party. Everyone loved it, even the non-german chocolate lovers. It?s extremely rich and flavorful, a small piece goes a long way.
Like all the other reviews state, this is not a quick or easy cake to make. I have a degree in Home Ec., taught cooking for 9 years and I consider myself a very efficient cook. The cake took about 3 hours to make, and lot of pots, pans and utensils ? so lots of cleaning!
It tasted great, but I am not sure if I would go through all of that for it again .
Yes, I did notice the mistake in the recipe, but it wasn't to hard to figure out and I didn't have any problem with overflow or the size of pan being incorrect. It turned out just like the one on tv, except there was way more Ganache than you need - we put the extra over ice-cream!

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Yes, this does take longer then your box cake mix but the cake looked and tasted great. I had a hard time finding fresh goats milk and I had to use canned. The next time I make this I will substitute canned condensed milk instead of using goats milk - I did not like the background flavor of the goats milk. After going to 2 stores and not being able to find 'muscavado' light brown sugar I used reg. brn. sugar. This cake has a lot of ingredients, it does take some time but, it will get YOU a five star rating at your party!

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I love to bake and I bake a lot, so I planned on making this cake for my boyfriends birthday/dinner party tonight. Sonia is right, There is no directions on when to add the flour mixture. I added it after the buttermilk/ egg/vanilla were added. It seemed like a lot of batter for 2 round layer pans.,..but I went ahead and put it in the oven. Two 9 inch pans are NOT big enough! The batter overflowed to the oven floor, making a huge mess. I am very dissapointed with this recipe due to the time and money spent to make something special. I quickly jumped to plan 2...I ended up rushing to the store and getting a boxed cake mix just so I could have something to use the cajeta, granache and whipped cream on...since I already purchased the ingredients,
The batter I scraped off the sides of the pans tasted good, as did the cajeta sauce, but if I were to make this again (which I won't, I would use three pans. I"m sure it's a great cake, just inaccurate directions.