German Russian Cake

Technically speaking, you can't go wrong with a cake mix right? All the ingredients are already measured for you, and the instructions are almost fool-proof - that is unless it's in German. My office mate got me this cake mix from Germany (she's German) after we tasted one they baked before during one of the fika session and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. It's called a German Russian Cake and it's quite a dense cake though, so a small piece is enough to go a long way. I've tried baking it once from scratch, but was not satisfied with the result and since I've exhausted this one pack of cake mix, I guess I will just have to try it again the next time I have a yearning for it, or buy it when I visit Germany myself!

I tried googling for English instructions and came across one that was not so well-translated and hence made a few mistakes I made when using the cake mix - melting all the butter in the chocolate part instead of reserving some for the rest of the cake, or not baking it at the lower rack etc. Fortunately I managed to remedied it, but this site has a more accurate translation and I just thought I will jot this down on the blog in any case some of you buy cooking mixes and seasonings as souvenirs when you travel - like me :P

Ingredients

1 box of Dr.Oetker Russischer Zupfkuchen cake mix
400g butter or 250g butter and 150g margarine, at room temperature.
4 eggs
500g quark

Steps

1. Melt 250g of butter and leave it to cool. Butter the cake pan you will be using and preheat the oven at 160°C.
2. Place the content of the chocolate baking mix in a bowl and add in 150g butter/margarine and 1 egg. Mix thoroughly and knead through until you get a smooth dough. Setting aside about 1/5 of the dough to be used as topping, flatten the remaining dough and use it to cover the bottom of the cake pan and create a 2cm brim on the inside of the cake pan. Seal the brim and the bottom by using your fingers to press them together.
   
   
   
3. Place the content of the filling mix (the lighter colored one) and add in the quark, 3 eggs and melted butter. Stir until smooth and pour on top of the chocolate dough in the cake pan. Form little disc with the 1/5 chocolate dough you have set aside and place it over the top of the filling as shown in the box cover.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Bake for 65 minutes on the lower rack of the oven. Leave it to cool in the oven for 5 minutes after switching the oven off then remove to cool on a rack for an hour before serving.