Waves of the Danube - or Donauwellen

A very nice classy from the german bakeries. Actually very easy to make, and the impact you can leave your guest with will be enormous! I also like making it because I like to pinch the cherries into the dough, creating the waves. What I like most, though, is the little *cracks* one can hear when the knife crushes the hard chocolate glaze when I cut myself a piece - hehe. My recipie is a free adaptation from a german classic baking book. Check it out

Here you go:
dough:
250g butter (yes!)
200g sugar
5 eggs
375g flour
1 tea spoon baking soda
1 pinch of salt
30 g cacoa (70%)
1 table spoon milk

topping
a glass of cherries
150 g butter
40g custard
2 table spoons sugar
500ml milk
1/2 vanilla bean
100 g sour cream
200g dark chocolate (70%)
1 table spoon coconut fat

Mix butter with sugar. Add one egg at a time to get a nice, fluffy dough. Add flour, salt and baking soda and mix only shortly. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Prepare square tray (oil or paper). Distribute 2/3 of dough on baking tray. Add cocoa and milk to the rest of the dough, mix. Put on top of the first layer. Drain cherries and pinch them singly into the cocoa dough, so that they nearly dissapear. Bake for approximately 40 minutes.

In the meantime, mix custard with sugar and 2 table spoons of milk. Scratch the inside of the vanilla bean into the rest of the milk, add the bark and bring to boil. Take the pot from stove and stir the custard mix into. Boil again while stirring until it thickens. Let cool down, stir every now and then so there will be no skin on the pudding. Take vanilla bark out.

When cooled down to room temperature, mix well with butter and sour cream.

When the cake cooled down, fence it with aluminium foil, then spread the topping on top of the cake. Place in fridge until the topping is somewhat harder (1h).

Melt chocolate in water bath until fully melted, add coconut fat. Spread evenly on top of the cake. You can, if you are artistic, add a wavy pattern. Cool again until chocolate topping hardened. Cut with a knife that you place in hot water for every piece you cut, so you don't destroy the chocolate topping. Enjoy.