By Valentine's Day. The forty-second. I brought Marvin a card and a piece of chocolate cake and I sat beside him and I read him the card: "Forty-two years. I love you in the morning and the afternoon and the two o'clock visit and the brisket and the challah and the silence and the windows and the 'good' and the 'Ruth' and the everything and the nothing. Always. Ruth." He did not understand the card. He ate the chocolate cake. He looked at me and said, "Thank you." Thank you. Two words. From the manners vault. From the deepest storage. From the place where courtesy and love are the same thing, and I will take them, I will take the "thank you" and I will put it in the vault with all the other words, the precious, diminishing, irreplaceable words.
I made a chocolate cake — the same dark chocolate cake I make every Valentine's Day, the dense, ganache-covered, serious cake. I ate a slice alone at the kitchen table and I thought about forty-two Valentine's Days and the trajectory of them: from the first card ("Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm an accountant, and I love you too") to this, the forty-second, the card he cannot read and the cake he eats and the "thank you" that is all that remains. The trajectory is the marriage. The marriage is the trajectory. And the chocolate cake is the same recipe, year after year, unchanged, because some things must not change, because the changing would be a surrender, and I do not surrender.
This is the cake — the one from the story, the one I have made every February fourteenth since the year Marvin gave me a card that rhymed “accountant” with “love.” I chose German Chocolate Cake because it is serious and dark and layered, and because the coconut-pecan frosting is the kind of thing that requires patience and attention, which is what forty-two years asks of you. I did not change a single ingredient this year. I will not change one next year either.
German Chocolate Cake
Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 12
Ingredients
- 4 oz sweet baking chocolate, chopped
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, separated
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup buttermilk
- For the Coconut-Pecan Frosting:
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 cups sweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup chopped pecans
Instructions
- Melt the chocolate. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans. Pour boiling water over chopped chocolate in a small bowl, stir until melted and smooth, and set aside to cool.
- Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla and the cooled melted chocolate.
- Alternate dry ingredients and buttermilk. On low speed, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk in two additions, beginning and ending with flour. Mix just until combined.
- Fold in egg whites. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Gently fold them into the batter in two additions until no white streaks remain.
- Bake the layers. Divide batter evenly among the prepared pans. Bake for 30–35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.
- Make the frosting. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks, and butter. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens and turns golden, about 12 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, coconut, and pecans. Let cool until spreadable, about 30 minutes.
- Assemble the cake. Place one cake layer on a serving plate and spread a generous portion of coconut-pecan frosting over the top. Repeat with the second and third layers. Spread frosting on top; the sides of the cake are traditionally left unfrosted. Let set for 15 minutes before slicing.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 680 | Protein: 8g | Fat: 38g | Carbs: 82g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 310mg