German chocolate sheet cake

I've never been a big fan of German chocolate cake. When I was a kid, it was because of the pecans in the topping. Nuts in desserts always made me angry. Now, it's because… I'm not sure. The cake is rather boring, with a dull, generic chocolate flavor. The topping is too sweet. Now, the pecans in the topping are probably my favorite part of the whole cake.

It's not something I would ever choose for myself. But my Auntie Barb requested it for her birthday, and I was happy to oblige. I found a recipe for it on Cook's Illustrated and got to work on Sunday morning.

The cake was fun to make, and the batter tasted amazing. Velvety and tangy. It turned out thicker than it was supposed to because I used Nancy's sour cream, which is almost the consistency of cream cheese. I think this contributed to the long baking time it required. I ended up pulling it out of the oven before the middle was actually done because the sides were over baking.

I still didn't like the cake, but other people seemed to. If I were to attempt it again, I would make these changes:

• Use regular sour cream
• Add maybe half a cup of dark, chopped chocolate or chocolate chips to the batter
• Use hot coffee instead of boiling water (to pour over and melt the chocolate and cocoa)
• Reduce the granulated sugar in the topping from 1 cup to 1/2 cup
• Broil the topping (need to buy a metal 9" x 13" pan, first

I doubt that I will attempt it again any time soon, though. Too many other things I'd rather make.