Chocolate Cherry Mascarpone Cake...A.K.A Donauwelle Cake

By: The Food Hunter


In Germany this elegant cake would be called Donauwellen (“Danube waves”) because of the wavy  patterns formed with each layer. The traditional German recipe combines a slab of marble sheet cake with sour cherries, buttercream and melted bittersweet chocolate on top. If you search the internet you will find a lot of recipe variations for this elegant cake. It's one of those easily adaptable recipes that always seems to come out delicious.

Being the chocolate lover that I am I decided to switch things up and make a chocolate cake base, I added a sweetened mascarpone layer, though next time I may try using ricotta. I used dark Morello cherries and a 72% dark chocolate for the ganache. The results were amazing!!

Chocolate Cherry Mascarpone Cake

For the chocolate cake:
1 1/3 cups flour
7 oz butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 jar of dark cherries, drained

For the cheese layer:
16 oz mascarpone
5 oz heavy cream
1 cup powdered sugar
1 vanilla bean

For the ganache:
10 oz dark chocolate
7 oz heavy cream


Preheat your oven to 350. Mix butter and sugar until creamy, add the eggs and mix well until all combined. Combine the flour, baking powder & cocoa powder. Add to the egg mixture and mix well.

Pour batter into a greased springform baking pan, smoothing it evenly. Bake for 40 minutes. Let cool completely in pan.

In the meantime put the mascarpone, powdered sugar and vanilla bean into a mixer and mix until smooth. Add the double cream and mix again until well combined.

Refrigerate until the cake is ready. Once ready spread mascarpone mixture over cake and put back into the refrigerator.

Finely chop the chocolate and put into a bowl. In a small pot, bring the double cream to boil. Add chocolate and stir to melt.

Spread the chocolate over the cake deliberately leaving it uneven.  Refrigerate at least 2 hours or until set.