Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a great start into the New Year – mine/ours was outstanding. The most noteworthy I would say has to be the fireworks display the Sudore’s put on. The 4th of July display in Longbeach is already quite the spectacle but being right underneath your own fireworks that keep exploding over your head for a small eternity, filling the entire sky with a constant burst of light explosions and hearing 8 kids scream in joy of the show was just amazing!

Looking back on 2014 I have to say it was a great year for me. The entire family was blessed with good health and there were so many highlights in 2014 from mushing with huskies for my birthday, the Seahawks winning the Superbowl, an extended visit to Germany, an amazing Summer with lots of get togethers with friends, fun trips to Washington DC, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Long Beach and Leavenworth, a new Job, and then there was lots of love in the air with the birth of a few babies and a couple of new engagements. Xena’s passing was the lowlight of the year but her passing brought Jules to us and with that a whole lot of new furry life into our house.

Mike and I nursed a pretty good hangover New Years day. I decided to spend the day on a SOA Marathon – watching 2 Seasons, 26 Episodes of Sons of Anarchy from 10:00 a.m. to midnight, getting up from the couch 2 times – that’s pretty much unheard of that I am not getting up from the couch every 5 minutes. Ryan should have made the Margarita’s and not me, I think I went overboard with the Tequila.

Thankfully there were left overs in the fridge from our New Years dinner with Cara, Astrid, Sophia and Paul and so I helped myself to a (big) slice of this very tasty Maulwurfkuchen, making it for a good TV marathon day!

Ingredients:

• 100 g butter (room temperature)
• 120 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150 g flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 30 g coco powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 75 ml milk
• 500 ml heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablesoons vanilla sugar
• 60 g coarse grated chocolate
• 3 bananas

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a spring from. Cream butter and sugar (3-5 minutes, you should get a light yellowish cream) and then add the eggs (individually).
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, cacao and salt. Add to the egg/cream/sugar mixture. Mix in the milk. Fill the mixture into the spring form and bake for 30 minutes; let the cake cool out.
3. Once the cake has cooled down, put the cake on a plate. Scoop out the middle part of the cake and set the cake crumbs aside in a bowl. Make sure to leave an inch boarder and don’t scoop out too deep, you want to make sure you have a solid cake border and bottom.
4. Beat the heavy whipping cream with 2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar – as stiff as possible but watch out that your whipping cream doesn’t turn into butter. Mix in the coarsely grated chocolate. Peel the bananas and cut them in half (lengthwise). Place the bananas with the cut side down into the scooped out cake, add the heavy whipping cream on top and distribute evenly, building a mount on top like a mole hill, then top the cream with the scooped out cake crumbs. Let the cake chill for 2 hours in the fridge.

Guten Appetit