Preheat the oven to 175°C (regular, not fan). Line a baking pan with baking paper.

Whip eggs, sugar and vanilla extract, until it is very light and fluffy. It takes at least 10 minutes. Sift your flour and baking powder together and mix it thoroughly. Melt the butter and mix it with milk and green food coloring, until you have the desired green color.

Mix the flour into the eggs alternating with the milk/butter mixture. Don’t overmix! That will result in a heavy and compact cake.

Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake it on a lower rack for about 20 minutes. Check, if the cake is done, or if it sticks to a wooden skewer.

Let the cake cool in the pan for a few minutes. Run a knife around the outside edges, put a new piece of baking paper on top and flip it over onto another baking pan or board. Remove the baking paper on the bottom of the cake, and put the cake in the freezer, until it is firm. It doesn’t have to be frozen solid, but it easier to cut out your Ampelmann, when the cake is cold.

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Butter or spray a bread pan, sized 10x10x30 cm.

Heat the cream in a small pan, remove the pan from the heat and pour the cream over the chopped chocolate. Leave it for at few minutes, until the chocolate starts melting, before you stir it together.

Mix butter, sugar and vanilla extract very well. Add the eggs one at a time, and mix well between each egg. Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa together and mix it thoroughly. Mix in flour alternating with the milk and be careful not to overmix it. Fold in the melted chocolate, until the batter is evenly combined.

Pour one centimeter of chocolate batter into the prepared bread pan and bake it for 7 minutes. The batter is not baked at this time, but has set. Pour the rest of the chocolate batter into a freezing bag or a piping bag.

Cut off the tip of your piping bag and put a stripe of batter in the middle of the baked cake, because we need some batter between the walking Ampelmann’s legs. Place your cold, cutout men upright all through the bread pan, very close together.

Pour in the rest of the chocolate dough evenly on both sides of the green cake. When you have used up all your batter, use a spatula to smooth out the dough and cover the green cake. Tap your bread pan a few times on the work bench just to make sure, that the chocolate cake has filled it properly.

Bake your Ampelmann cake in the lower third of your oven for 45-50 minutes. Check with a wooden skewer, whether the cake is baked or sticks to it. You of course have to check on both sides of the cake, because the middle (green) part of your cake is baked already:-)

Let the cake cool in the bread pan for 5-10 minutes, before you flip it over, remove the bread pan and let the cake cool completely on a cooling rack.

Carefully melt the chocolate for decoration, either in the micro wave or in a bain-marie, and drizzle it over the cooled Ampelmann cake.