Trisha Yearwood Surprises Husband Garth Brooks with His ‘Favorite’ Birthday Cake — Get the Recipe
No birthday celebration is complete without a memorable cake, and lucky for Garth Brooks, he’s married to someone who knows a thing or two about baking.
While filming Inside Studio G: A Monday Night Conversation, Brooks— who turned 55 on Tuesday — got a special surprise from his wife, country music singer and Food Network star Trisha Yearwood, when she brought him his “favorite” German chocolate cake with butterscotch frosting.
Yearwood interrupts filming with the cake wearing a party hat, immediately bringing a smile to Brooks’ face. In between serenading him, the star of Trisha’s Southern Kitchen says the “Happy Birthday” candles melted so much that they are hard to read.
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The sweet couple, who have been together for 12 years, have been celebrating Brooks’ birthday with the special cake since they first got together. The recipe is featured in her cookbook, Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen, and can be found below.
“Nobody can bake or cook like does,” Brooks says in the video. “She spoils me to death and it’s the best day on the planet!”
Trisha Yearwood’s German Chocolate Cake with Butterscotch Frosting
Serves 12
4 oz. sweet dark chocolate
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
¼ cup warm milk
2 ½ cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
5 medium eggs, separated
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¾ cup buttermilk, well shaken
One 11-oz. bag butterscotch morsels
1 pound cream cheese, room temperature
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
¼ cup heavy cream
½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the chocolate by melting it in the top of a double boiler, stirring until it is smooth. Add 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of the butter and stir until it is melted and blended. Add the warm milk and stir until smooth. Set the chocolate aside to cool.
2. Line the bottoms only of three 9-inch cake pans with circles of parchment paper, or grease each pan bottom only with solid shortening and dust lightly with flour.
3. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.
4. Whip the egg whites until stiff using the wire beater of the mixer. Transfer the beaten whites to a separate bowl and set aside.
5. In the mixer bowl, cream the remaining 1 1/2 sticks of butter and the sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the melted, cooled chocolate and the vanilla. Mix well.
6. With the mixer on very low, stir in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Do this by adding about a third of the flour and slowly stirring it in completely. Then add about half the buttermilk and stir it in. Continue adding flour and buttermilk in this manner, ending with the flour.
7. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and stir again. With a long-handled spoon or spatula, fold and stir the beaten egg whites into the batter until the batter is smooth with no visible clumps of whites.
8. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Bake on the middle rack of the oven, allowing at least 1/4-inch clearance between the pans and the oven walls. The cake will rise above the pan edges as it bakes but will not spill over and will settle back down as it continues to bake. The cake is done when it begins to pull away from the sides of the pans and springs back to a light touch. Cool the layers in the pans for about 8 minutes.
9. Run a knife around the edges of each pan and turn the layers out onto wire racks that have been sprayed with cooking spray. Cool the layers completely before frosting.
10. Place the butterscotch morsels in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water or in the top of a double boiler. Stir until melted, then remove from the heat.
11. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the cream cheese until smooth. Add the butter and confectioner’s sugar, and continue mixing. Add the melted butterscotch morsels and the heavy cream and vanilla, and mix until fully combined.
12. To assemble the cake: Place one layer on a cake stand and spread with frosting. Frost each layer completely, top and sides, as it is added to the cake.
