I turned a year older yesterday and everyone asked what’s the feeling to be a year older? Hmm…I really feel older if they keep on asking . A part of me is sort of reluctant to accept the fact that I’ll soon pass the age bracket starting with the number 2. Is there a way to overcome this growing up crisis?

Anyway, on another note, T’s mum offered to bake a birthday cake for me . Am I lucky or ain’t i lucky ? I was telling her the other day that I was planning to bake a cake to bring to the office for my colleagues and she suggested we bake Donauwellen. The name literally means ‘waves from the river Danube’, a river which originates in the Black Forest in Germany and ends in the Black Sea.

I thought of baking this cake as well but the idea of it turning out as a disaster put me off because this is a very typical German cake and almost every German has eaten this cake at least once in his/her life before. And I haven’t made this before. So I’d rather stay on the safe side. However since T’s mum offered to help, I jumped at the offer unashamedly .

The cake is baked on a baking tray and the base is from a normal cake batter with eggs, butter and sugar. Those black ‘things’ you see in the picture below are cherries ‘half-buried’ into the cake batter using a spoon and being baked together.
The next step is to cover the cake with butter cream. For Donauwelle, the butter cream is made of custard beaten together with soft butter.
The clue to a perfect Donauwelle lies in the butter cream because it may curdle if not cool properly before combining with butter.
After the butter cream layer is chilled for about an hour in the fridge, we are ready to coat the upper layer with melted dark chocolate. Use a fork to make some waves pattern over the melted chocolate and leave to cool overnight. The results? My colleagues love them . Not bad eh for the first time .
I’ll share the Donauwelle recipe in another post. Have a nice weekend!