EARTHQUAKE TIME

Throughout my adult life one of my best sources for yummy food has been pot lucks. Rarely have I been turned down when I've eaten something absolutely wonderful and asked for the recipe.

This recipe came from a pot luck held at the old Tustin (CA) Community Hospital back in the mid 1980s when I was sent there on a three-month assignment by a temporary agency. It was a small hospital and I was in the accounting department. I don't remember what the pot luck was celebrating, but I had been there long enough to be invited to it. (I wasn't so lucky on some of the assignments I was sent on. One time I was sent out to cover the phones while a big party was held in a small company. I sat at a desk manning a phone through a 2-1/2 hour party without being offered as much as a drink of water!)

But at the Tustin pot luck, when I tasted this cake, which truly did look like an earthquake had totally destroyed it, I knew I just had to have the recipe. The cake maker graciously shared it with me and I have made the cake often through the years since that time. There are dozens of this same recipe posted on the internet, so I assume when it originated it came from a printed source in a magazine or some such place. But for me it's source will always be connected to that little potluck at the hospital in Tustin!


EARTHQUAKE CAKE

1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 box (2 layers) German Chocolate cake mix
1 stick margarine, softened
1 8-ounce pack cream cheese, softened
1 pound powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grease bottom of 9"x13" or 11"x15” pan. Set oven at
350 degrees. Spread coconut on bottom of pan, then
pecans.

Prepare cake mix and pour batter over coconut and
nuts. DO NOT MIX!

Mix butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and
vanilla. Drop mixture by spoonsful on top of batter.
Do not stir or mix.

Bake 45-50 minutes. Cool. Drizzle with melted
chocolate or serve as is. Serves 10.