German Chocolate Cake with Aunt Christine's Coconut Pecan Frosting

One of my family's favorite cakes is a good German Chocolate Cake. It just so happens to be my good friend Will's too. So for his birthday (yeah, it was way back in November...), I made him one. I think he liked it. :o)

Anyhow, to make the cake, I just use a box mix, and it tastes pretty good too. It's the frosting that really makes the difference, and I am sharing a family recipe below - so get excited!

Aunt Christine's Coconut Pecan Frosting

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned evaporated milk

3 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring

1 1/2 cups of flaked coconut

1 cup chopped pecans

In medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in sugar & egg yolks, then vanilla flavoring & evaporated milk. Continue cooking and stirring over medium heat until thick, about 12 minutes. Stir in coconut and pecans and beat with spoon until thick enough to spread. Ice cooled cake while frosting is still warm.

If you can't tell, I forgot to get a picture of the cake for the blog before we cut into it, but we made a pretty good sized dent in it real quick. And besides, this view gives you a good vision of the inside construction. :o)

Also, like most three-layer cakes that I make, I always wind up with extra batter, so I made a batch of cupcakes too - see below.