RECIPE: REC: Sacher Torte-- a very old and different recipe

RECIPE:
R

richard-in-cincy

Well-known member
This recipe is from the Alice B. Toklas cookbook which I am reading now (a lot of fun). Alice claims the recipe is from her Austrian cook (who had worked at the Sacher in Vienna) who she and Gertrude Stein employed before WWI. That means this recipe is from the days of Imperial Vienna. It is very different than the dried out underwhelming thing they serve to hordes of tourist in Vienna these days. Was this orginally how Sacher torte was made? Of course, now I'm researching this. In the meantime, this version of "Sacher Torte" is light years past the current inedible version.

Sacher Torte

Cream 1/2 cup butter, gradually add 1 cup sugar, the grated peel of 1 lemon, 4 oz. melted chocolate, the yolks of 6 eggs, fold in the beaten whites of 6 eggs and 3 tbls. flour. Butter and flour a flat cake pan and bake for 40 minutes in a 325F oven. Let cool in pan. When perfectly cold, cut in half and spread the the following mixture between the two layers.

2 oz. chocolate melted, to which add 1/2 cup hot coffee. When perfectly smooth beat in 2 yolks of eggs. Beat 1 cup heavy cream sweeteend with 3 tbls. icing sugar. ADd first mixture to the whipped cream.

Cover the cake with apricot jelly or strained apricot jam and ice with chocolate glasur/ganache.

 
I love that book.--read it cover to cover twice, but never cooked a recipe

You're the first person I've heard of who has. This sounds divine.

 
I am so tempted to do the Oeufs Francis Picabia...

Only Two ingredients: 8 eggs and 1/2 pound butter (with a dare to use more butter!). Is that French or what? LOL

It is indeed a fun book. I've been galloping through bios lately of Gertrude and Alice and a friend of theirs Samuel Steward (and a few other larger than life 20th C. icons like Gore Vidal, etc.). Stewards bio just came out and it is fascinating.

 
I think it would be round. Perhaps she meant flat as opposed to a ring mold or other shape..

The book is very long on stories and short on specifics.

 
So, we're confirmed then, at least until Richard reports back on the Sacher Torte

There's another recipe in the book for a hazelnut tart that I've been meaning to try for 20 years. I think it's from the same Viennese chef, who, if I recall correctly, was possessed by a demonic she-devil lover who stole him from Gertrude and Alice.

 
Exactly right about the pan and the she-devil. smileys/smile.gif

That hazelnut tart is on my to try list. You're right this is from the same Austrian chef.

 
REC: Austrian Hazelnut Tart

I haven't made this yet, but since it came up, here's the recipe from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas' Austrian cook:

1/2 cup and 1 tbls butter, 1 cup and 2 tbls flour, 1 egg yok, blend with knives or pastry blender, add only enough water to hold together, knead lightly, put aside in refrigerator. Stir 2 eggs and 1 cup plus 2 tbls. sugar for 20 minutes. Do not beat. Add 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 cup finely chopped hazel nuts. Roll out a little more than half the dough, place in deep pie plate with detachable bottom (springform pan), fill with egg-sugar-nut-mixture. Roll out remaining dough and cover tart, press teh edges together so that the bottom and top crusts adhere. Bake for 1/2 hour in 350F oven.

 
"Stir...for 20 minutes." Now I remember why I haven't tried it, lol. I wonder

if a mixer with the flat beater on low speed might do the trick. I assume one wants the sugar to dissolve without beating any air into the eggs.

 
Yes, that's what I thought as well...

I made a chocolae chess pie last month that I used the mixer on and that was a big mistake. It looked rather mousse like and it baked into a big crisp shell that shattered as it cooled. I should think combining it and letting it sit for 20 minutes, then stirring a bit would get the same results???

Have I mentioned how utterly amazingly decadent and extraordinarily delicious this version of Sachertorte is? I hope you'll try it. It's as if one is eating delicious history. The chocolate mocha whipped cream filling with the apricot preserves on the outside is sheer genius. The cake isn't that dry sand block the typical Sachertorte is, it's more like a flour-less chocolate cake in texture and taste. The lemonzest in the chocolate cake is also amazing. It's like this glorious stream of sunshine cutting through the rich density of the chocolate and cream baroque fugue.

I did use a packet of Dr. Oetker's whipped cream stabilizer in the whipped cream filling, otherwise I followed the recipe to the letter. Oh, and should have said in the pan discussion that I used a springform pan. Works much better I think than using a round cake pan. The cake springs up quite impressively and might overflow a regular cake pan. When it cools, it does collapse a bit and creates a bit of a crater effect. But after slicing the cake in two, I transferred the top directly to the cake plate and made it the base and used the crater as a container for the whipped cream and it worked perfectly to contain it and not have it ooze out when the top layer went on.

 
REC: Austrian Chocolate Torte Glaze

This is the classic Austrian chocolate glaze for Sacher that I used on the cake above:

Combine 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate in small saucepan, bring to a boil, stirring frequently, boil until temp registers at 243F, about 5 minutes of boil. Remove from heat, stirring and cool down until it's warm, then pour onto cake. Use spatula to smooth top if necessary, and get complete covereage of the sides. Do this over a rack with a pan underneath to catch the over flow. Leftover glaze makes a great warm fudge sauce for ice cream.

 
Well, I must give Sacher Torte another try. My only taste of it was at the Sacher Cafe in Vienna. It

was such a disappointment, and at the pre-euro exchange of about $6.00 a slice, such a rip-off.

I remember reading that the cafe became popular because the last emperor was a light eater. Those who were invited to join him for dinner were left high and dry when he would retire after the soup course. They left the palace starving and went across the road for Sacher Torte.

As for the hazelnut torte, I'm willing to do it ONCE the required 20-minute way. I have some episodes of "Glee" to catch up on.

 
I think Sacher Torte is a disappointment for anyone...

it's become a tourist cliche and they just crank out that awful dried out sawdust disc and coat it with chocolate. That's one of the first things I did when I got to Vienna. Go to the Sacher and eat their awful overpriced cake...and be treated disdainfully by the lackeys guarding the sacred portals (that kind of attitude rolls right off me like water on a duck--attitude from the hired help is annoying and responded to accordingly smileys/wink.gif

No idea if this recipe was the original that they've dumbed down to peddle to the tourist trade, but it is absolutely one of the best Viennese tortes I've ever tasted. Everyone that's tasted it all had the same stunned "OHMIGAAWD what is this total chocolate decadence in my mouth!" response. It is truly exceptional. I still have some in the fridge and the whipped cream filling (with the Dr. Oetker stabilizer) is holding up quite well into day 4.

Oh, I tried Trader Joe's 72% Cacao Bittersweet Belgian chocolate bars for the chocolate. First time I'd used them for baking and they really made the chocolate a great assertive presence in the torte.

 
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