Daring Bakers Challenge - Dobos Torte

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.

A Dobos Torte is a six-layer cake with a caramelized layer of cake for the topping. It is quite rich with chocolate buttercream between the thin layers of sponge cake. As you can see, it is beautiful. I had visions of beautiful finishing touches for my cake, but kept it simple on my smaller, six-inch version. The cake was quite time-consuming. I would say from prep to cleanup was a good six hours. I baked the cake layers one day, and finished the next.

The original recipe is heavy on eggs and butter, so for my vegan version I used Bryanna Clark Grogan’s sponge cake recipe, and VCTOTW chocolate buttercream. I normally loath and despise buttercream, but I actually liked my recipe using Smart Balance instead of EB, and my favorite Scharffen Berger cocoa. I also made it mocha flavored by using strong coffee instead of milk. The sponge cake was fun to make since I got to make vegan egg whites. It really worked!

This was the first time I made cake layers without a cake pan. I drew 7-inch circles on parchment paper and spread the batter onto baking sheets.

This is how my kitchen looked when I was making the cake layers.

As I said, I finished up the next day and the cake turned out just lovely.

I took it to my mom’s (I try not to keep such decadent desserts at my house!) and nervously plated a slice.

Rich and delicious. I’m always amazed when I complete a vegan version of these fabulous challenges.

You can read the full recipe here.

If you have several hours to spare, make yourself a vegan or nonvegan Dobos Torte and I’m sure you will enjoy it.