I also live in Germany and find this cake to be pretty accurate. Two weeks ago my family and I spent the weekend in the Blk Forest. We ate cake everyday. Some is too strong for our 13 yr. old. We bought a cherry likor that is 25% and made her bday cake w/that instead. The only thing I dont like is the shortening.

Reviewed On: Sep. 17, 2009

My 12 y/o daughter made this for our anniversary this Summer. My husband says this was "the best cake he ever had!" We live in Europe and have travelled extensively. He's quite 'the food snob' and I've never heard him give such a compliment. She's making it again for a social gathering on Friday.

Reviewed On: Sep. 3, 2009

My husband made this last night for a chocolate pound cake. He generally makes the ganache perfectly but screwed it up last night and we ended up with "broken ganache." If your ganache ends up looking like caviar or used coffee grounds then you didnt heat the cream high enough. We had used all of our cream and fine dark chocolate from Christmas. There was no plan B for the cake. In order to fix this you split the broken ganache in half. We put half in a bowl and placed it outside for a half an hour, but the freezer works well too. Once chilled, you heat the other half. We used the microwave. Then you re-mix using an electric mixer. It came out perfectly.

Reviewed On: Jan. 2, 2009