TORTS (to tarts): Daring Bakers’ August Challenge

My status as not just a daring baker, but also a soon-to-be-lawyer baker has come full circle. In June, I finally made a tart. Now in August, I finally made a tort. I have made the two desserts that exemplify the name of this blog. So, I am grateful to the Daring Bakers and this months hostesses for choosing this months 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.
So much for getting the positive out of the way. I was not a huge fan of this recipe. The sponge cake was my favorite part of the recipe. The cake was light and airy, sponge-like, if you will. The sponge by itself was fantastic. In the recipe, I exchange vanilla extract with rum extract to give it a punch of flavor.

What really troubled me about this recipe was the chocolate butter cream. The butter cream would not set to a consistence in which the tort could be served at room temperature. Even refrigerated, the frosting did not hold-up well. To assemble the cake I put butter cream between each layer and then wrapped the cake in parchment paper circle to help it retain its shape while I refrigerated it. Then I frosted the outside of the cake and had to freeze the cake just to get the cake to be halfway presentable for pictures. I was really disappointed with the consistency of the butter cream, though the flavor was okay.

Lastly, the recipe requires the cake to be topped with a toffee/caramel coated sponge layer. I really did not feel like tackling caramel, but in the spirit of the challenge, I wanted to complete all elements. Well, true to form, I burned the first attempt at the caramel. I do this each time I make caramel. So, the second batch came out well and I did a daisy shaped flower topper to my tort.

As always, I am proud to say I completed the challenge regardless of the results :-). The challenge recipe and the other daring bakers’ torts can be accessed from The Daring Kitchen.