Thursday, August 27, 2009

Daring Bakers, Dobos Tortas anyone ?

This month we had Dobos Torta, a Hungarian speciality as our Daring Bakers challenge ..
The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.
The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel.


The recipe follows :

Sponge cake layers

  • 6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
  • 1 1/3 cups (162g) confectioner's (icing) sugar, divided
  • 1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (112g) sifted cake flour (SUBSTITUTE 95g plain flour + 17g cornflour (cornstarch) sifted together)
  • pinch of salt

Chocolate Buttercream

  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 cup (200g) caster (ultrafine or superfine white) sugar
  • 4oz (110g) bakers chocolate or your favourite dark chocolate, finely chopped
  • 2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons (250g) unsalted butter, at room temperature.

Caramel topping

  • 1 cup (200g) caster (superfine or ultrafine white) sugar
  • 12 tablespoons (180 ml) water
  • 8 teaspoons (40 ml) lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon neutral oil (e.g. grapeseed, rice bran, sunflower)

Finishing touches

  • a 7” cardboard round
  • 12 whole hazelnuts, peeled and toasted
  • ½ cup (50g) peeled and finely chopped hazelnuts

Directions for the sponge layers:

NB. The sponge layers can be prepared in advance and stored interleaved with parchment and well-wrapped in the fridge overnight.

1.Position the racks in the top and centre thirds of the oven and heat to 400F (200C).
2.Cut six pieces of parchment paper to fit the baking sheets. Using the bottom of a 9" (23cm) springform tin as a template and a dark pencil or a pen, trace a circle on each of the papers, and turn them over (the circle should be visible from the other side, so that the graphite or ink doesn't touch the cake batter.)
3.Beat the egg yolks, 2/3 cup (81g) of the confectioner's (icing) sugar, and the vanilla in a medium bowl with a mixer on high speed until the mixture is thick, pale yellow and forms a thick ribbon when the beaters are lifted a few inches above the batter, about 3 minutes. (You can do this step with a balloon whisk if you don't have a mixer.)

The first thing I had to look at was the Vegatarian-ising the sponge cake from , I tried this recipe - it has too much soda though, so increased flour by 1 cup...still more than a hint of bitterness in the sponge and that sort of spoiled the cake for me :(

I did go ahead with it just for the sake of trying it out fully..some more notes..

Butter Chocolate - melt semi-sweet chocolate, beat in room temp butter...seems like a lot but balanced...I tried this Biscuit cake with the leftover chocolate buttercream and it was amazing !

Caramel - be patient , that white sugar syrup does turns to a dark golden orange caramel toffee mixture..

Overall, this was kinda mixed experiment to me and the first one where most of it went into the garbage (sigh)

12 comments:

  1. Sorry it didn't work, but your picture looks great!

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  2. I found myself quite challenged on this torta, too. I'm on a diet, so I didn't taste it, but my hubby said it was good. It definitely took an awful lot of work to produce. The buttercream and the caramel were my greatest challenges. I wonder now if I would do it all over again to see if I could perfect it. That may take me awhile to decide.

    Happy Bakes 2U!

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  3. Your caramel is a lovely golden color and your layers look great! It really is a time consuming dessert. :)

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  4. This was such a hard recipe! You did a great job though-you should be proud!

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  5. I had a few troubles also..yep, it really was a challenge! Your torte certainly looks beautiful though!!!

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  6. Looks grt dear, i too made mine :)

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  7. I'm sorry you had some trouble -- it was a really challenging recipe! And your end result looks great!!

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  8. I hear ya! But at least you did the caramel.. party on! And it looks GREAT! I'm glad you found another cake recipe to go with the extra buttercream. :D

    xoxo

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  9. Thank you everyone !! Actually the cake did work out pretty good and looked good too , except for the vegetarian sponge - which was bitter and could not be masked..maybe I will try with a better sponge recipe...anyone knows of a good one ??

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  10. Your torte looks pretty good. Yes that much of baking powder was too much. Maybe you can try the recipe I used (Bryanna Grogan's) for an eggless sponge.

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