Danube wave

I love food that tells a story, and I believe that this cake is one of them. In German it is called "Donauwelle", which means "Danube wave".

Danube is Europe's second longest river (the longest is Volga river) that runs through 10 countries. Two of these ten countries are German speaking. The cake it self resembles waves and although German Wikipedia claims that there is no connection between this cake and the Danube river I choose to believe that there is a connection.

I believe that once upon a time there was a very creative person who liked to bake and who enjoyed the beauty of the Danube river. One windy day she (he) was sitting on the bed of the Danube, probably under a cherry tree, and the idea for the "Danube wave" cake was born.

This cake is really easy to make and the result is amazing. Chocolate and cherries just cannot be wrong. And then all the waves, wonderful.

The cake batter is a pound cake in two colours, light and dark. I used my brownie baking pan (22x22cm) and thought that pound cake made of 100 gr of each ingredient (sugar 70 gr) would be enough, but I believe next time I will increase to 150 gr of each ingredient. I used only 100 gr butter in the butter cream but next time I will use only custard.

I have also started replacing wheat flour with kamut flour when baking and it really worked excellent in this recipe. Kamut flour is yellowish which makes it look even prettier.

Donauwelle
2 eggs (approx. 110 gr)
100 gr butter
70 gr sugar
100 gr kamut flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbs cacao powder
300 gr sour cherries in jar

4 dl vanilla custard
100 gr butter

150 gr chocolate
3 tbsp cream

Put the cherries in a sieve. Beat sugar and butter until fluffy, add eggs one at the time, beating well after each egg. Add flour and baking powder and mix very shortly. Divide in two equal parts and add cacao to one part. Mix and if batter is too thick add some milk.

Spread evenly light batter in the pan, spread cacao batter over it. Every 1 cm put one cherry and press down a bit. Bake on 160C for about 25 minutes. Take it out of the oven and let cool completely.

Cream the butter and add vanilla custard, mix well and spread evenly over the cake. Chop the chocolate, heat the cream and add it to the chocolate. Blend well until chocolate is melted. Let it cool a bit in case it is hot so that it doesn't melt the butter cream. Spread on the top of the cake and with a fork make waves.

Waves are best visible if you cut in the middle of a cherry row.