German Chocolate Cake is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. Sweet baking chocolate is traditionally used for the chocolate flavor in the actual cake, but few recipes call for it today. The coconut and pecans are mixed into a sweetened and thickened cream base. Generally, a chocolate frosting is spread on the sides of the cake and piped around the circumference of the layers to hold in the filling. Maraschino cherries are an added touch. HistoryThis cake is actually not a traditional German dessert. The original recipe was sent by a homemaker in Dallas in 1957 to a newspaper in Texas. It used Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, which was created in 1852 by an Englishman named Samuel German for the Baker's chocolate brand. Coconut is also a major baking product of the company.The cake became quite popular and General Foods — which owned Baker's Chocolate at the time — sent the recipe to other newspapers in the country. Sales of the company are said to have increased by as much as 73%. The apostrophe was accidentally dropped in subsequent publications, creating the 'German Chocolate Cake' we know today.It has been suggested that the cake didn't strictly originate from this recipe. Similar buttermilk and chocolate cakes have been popular in the South for over 70 years.