Daring Bakers Dobos Torta

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.

Lorraine is my blogging friend and she’s a very talented cook. I knew if she was helping with the challenge it would be something really challenging! And this torte recipe definitely was challenging for me! The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel.

Deeba called it simple yet complicated. Rosa described it as laborious and nearly traumatizing. (Both of their beautiful posts cracked me up.) Somewhere along the line I underestimated how time consuming and frustrating this recipe would be.

My cake layers were thinner than I expected and I had the same rushed feeling as Deeba. Trying to spread one layer out while another layer is baking, while at the same time trying to take another layer off the parchment. My buttercream frosting started out great, but when I added the chocolate it all deflated. The one bright spot was my caramel layer which I think turned out just right!

As a Daring Baker should, I persevered to the end and put the cake together as best I could. I am not a buttercream fan, so this cake was not my favorite, but I learned a lot and best of all I got to use my new scale for measuring!

Please visit Lorraine or Angela’s for the full recipe, and be sure and check out all the amazing Dobos Tortes on the Daring Bakers’ blogroll.