Adventures in Baking: Dobos Torte Recipe

The Dobos Torte named after its creator József Dobos is a cake of legendary status in Hungary with its 6 layers, chocolate butter cream frosting and caramel topping.

Regular readers will know that I am not much of a baker primarily becasue I don't have a sweet tooth but I am determined to improve but my decision to try a legendary Dobos Torte Recipe (pronounced dobosh) is definitely one of those kill or cure moments.  I will not lie and say this is easy, but judging by the Oo's and Ahh's made by the people it was served too it was effort really well spent.

As neither my wife or I hanker after sweet food, desserts tend to by cooked when we have visitors and the return of a couple of British people to our village meant a wee cook out and a rather brave or stupid decision to take on this recipe.

When I say that the Dobos Torte Recipe is something of a Hungarian legend I really mean it as a result there is not a single coffee shop or cafe that will not have one or several of these in pride of place. Having made my own all I can do is doff my cap at the craft involved.

I was under the impression that the Dobos Torte was named as it looked like a drum as the Hungarian word for drum is Dobos and it would seem many folk on the web think the same too.

However the original dobos torte recipe was developed by a József Dobos which would probably be a much more sensible origin for the name.

I do love the story behind the original dobos torte recipe, it was developed for the National Exhibition of 1885 for Franz Joseph I and Empress Elizabeth to much success. He even traveled globally on the back of it introducing the cake where ever he went.

Apparently back then butter cream was very much a rarity that he kept top secret until he retired in 1906 when he donated the dobos torte recipe to the confectioners chamber of industry where it became a matter of public record and the secret was uncorked. Allowing the Dobos Torte to become the legend it is today.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson lets get back to how this novice baker got on with this Dobos Torte recipe. Well the blunt answer to that was terribly to begin with, I had been using a book called Culinaria Hungary which has been translated to many languages and the English version is translated pretty poorly.

However the problem, I had was not with translation but with quantities. Once I had made my first layer it became patently obvious that there was something wrong, there was just nowhere near the sort of quantity of batter required to make up 6 layers of sponge.

Not being a particularly confident or experienced baker I naturally assumed the problem was in something I did. But as time went on I had come to the realisation that I had been duped and would need to start all over again.

I was buoyed by the fact that the sponge was incredibly light and really beautiful and the butter cream was smooth dark and unctuous. As a result I spent the evening of bake number 1 with a calculator and a piece of paper trying to scale the recipe.

On to day 2 of my adventures in baking and the by now rather intimidating Dobos Torte recipe armed with my incredibly complex mathematics I entered the furnace of our kitchen. I went at it again knowing that I only had a short window to get it right as our guests were coming for dinner that night.  Well it went like a dream, hard work and precision yes but actually second time around really simple.

Even the mercury rising to 38°C outside and working in a kitchen with the oven on and no air con barely raised a single curse word out of me.  If I was to be completely honest I would actually say I really enjoyed the process, eventually. Although am glad I don't have a sweet tooth or stuff like this could become a regular occurrence, there was many a kind word said about the cake which was ready when our friends arrived.

This sort of cake is the ideal accompaniment to a cup of coffee, sponge that is as light as a very light thing, and the bitter cocoa I used in the butter cream matched perfectly well with the over proofed rum. It created a very grown up chocolate feel to the whole cake and the crispy crackle of the caramel layer on top is just pure genius.

Overall I would say I am really proud of this, sure it is not quite up to the legendary Gerbaud Cafe standard but for a dude who does not really bake and does not have a sweet tooth it really was a show stopper, and trust me if I can do it anyone can!