Coconut Frosting for German Chocolate Cake

I cheated and bought a german chocolate cake mix. I figured if I am making this for the first time, and the icing looks tricky enough, then I can afford to go semi-homemade. So that's what I did.

It just so happens that right now on the world wide web of blogging I am finding quite a few german chocolate cakes. So imagine my surprise when I am told that that is the cake of choice when I offer to make one for Baby Cakes' Grandpa. This is not without trepidation. Very imtimidating cake, then again all baking intimidates me the first time around but if anyone is worth it Grandpa is.

After searching far and wide I decided to go with the icing recipe from the Trisha Yearwood cookbook and thanks to Sharon123 over at RecipeZaar I found it.

One thing I noticed is my icing cooked up a bit different from the recipe. Not sure what I did diffrent but it worked out perfectly for me in the end. I just couldn't seem to get the mixture to boil for the life of me, so I just ended up cooking it alot longer. Oh and I wasn't even sure how thick to make it so I made mine a bit thicker than gravy. (I am visioning brown gravy, a tad bit too thick brown gravy.)


Coconut Frosting
adapted from Trisha Yearwood

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
4 medium egg yolks
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 ounces grated coconut (by weight)
8 ounces of pecans, finely ground

Directions

Fill bottom of double boiler or a large saucepan about halfway full of water, set over medium low heat. You want the water simmering.

Combine the sugar, egg yolks, and evaporated milk in a double boiler or in a glass bowl. Stir with a wire whisk until the yolks are fully mixed in. Add the stick of butter.

Place bowl/double boiler over simmering water and stir every few minutes for about a hour, until the mixture thickens. Stir in the vanilla right before adding it to the coconut and pecans.

Store in the fridgedaire overnight or until serving.

I highly advise icing the cake before it cools completely, it gets really sticky the cooler it gets. Oh and the scent of this icing vanilla-ee-caramelly-buttery yum!

Enjoy,