Father’s Day Cake!

On Father’s Day, everyone in my family was preparing to give or make my dad something.  I decided to make my dad a really delicious cake called a Doboschtorte. He decided to help me with it as he enjoys baking as well. I was quite grateful for the help as this recipe is somewhat complicated.

A Doboschtorte is a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and a caramel glaze on top,  which makes it look kind of like a monstrous creme brulee.

It was really fun to make because the layers of the cake had to be very thin, almost as thin as a pancake, and the whole thing had to chill for a while before it could be  consumed.

My mom was astounded at the amount of butter the cake had in it, and honestly so was I on the first read through of the recipe. However the majority of that goes into making the frosting very smooth, so it is alright flavor-wise.

I was also suprised that the cake has no salt written anywhere in the recipe, all the butter was unsalted and it never says to salt to taste anywhere. I added a touch of salt in my version. It turned out well but now I want to try it again without adding salt to see how it turns out.

Here is a picture of what the cake looks like when it is done. You can see that the caramel acts as a coating on the top while the frosting coats the outsides. The reason for this is because the cake recipe comes from when refrigeration did not exist and coating it with sugar was one way of making it not dry out  or go bad as quickly..

 

Ingredients for cake

1/2 lb unsalted butter, softened.

1  cup granulated sugar

4 lightly beaten eggs

1 1/2 cups all purpose or cake flour (The original recipe says all purpose flour, I used cake flour)

1 tsp vanilla extract.

1/2 tsp salt (optional)

ingredients for frosting.

1 1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

2/3 cup water

8 egg yolks.

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 lb unsalted butter, softened.

 

glaze

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

 

Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixer or by hand.

Beat in the eggs and then stir in the flour and vanilla extract as well as the salt, if using. Keep stirring until mixture is smooth.

Butter the underside of a 9 inch layer cake pan. Coat pan with flour and then knock off the excess flour.  spread the batter as evenly as possible on the bottom of the layer cake pan to a thickness of 1/8 inch.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 7-9 minutes or until browned around the edges.

Repeat until seven layers are made, being careful when removing the cooked layer onto the cooling rack.

While the cake is cooking you can make the frosting.

In a small saucepan combine the sugar, cream of tartar, and water. Stir under low heat until the sugar is dissolved then turn the heat to moderately high and boil the sugar mixture until it reaches 238 F on a candy thermometer or it reaches the soft ball state.

Beat the egg yolks until they lighten in color 3-4 minutes.

After the eggs lighten in color turn up the speed to medium and add the syrup in a thin steady stream, a little at a time.  Mix until the mixture is cool and is a thick smooth cream, 10-15 minutes.

Refrigerate while you make the glaze.

Put the most pretty  cake layer on a baking sheet. that will be the one that gets coated.

Mix the sugar and water in a saucepan. cook until the mixture is dark in color (golden brown but not burnt) . This will take some time if you do this on medium heat, but I recommend doing it on medium to avoid burning the caramel.

Once the caramel is done then pour it over the cake layer and draw lines in the cooling caramel with a toothpick so you’ll know where to cut later.

Now that all the parts are done, the cake can be assembled.

Assembly of the cake:

Each layer of cake gets some frosting in the middle. It is best to use a flat spatula for frosting the cake. Once the cake is frosted in the middle then it should be frosted on the sides. This part is more simple than frosting the middle because the frosting on the middle should be a rather thin layer in comparison to the layers in the middle of the cake.

Place the top layer of the cake (the one with the caramel) on top.

Refrigerate for one hour before serving.

 

Works Cited

The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire by Joseph Wechsberg.