My First Daring Bakers Challenge

I've been wanting to join the Daring Bakers for awhile now, but felt too intimidated to do so. I remembered recently that one of my 2009 To-Do items included adding something new to my baking repertoire, so I finally joined in time to make the August challenge and see if I can force myself to try a new baking technique or recipe and take my skills to a new level.

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:

ExquisiteDesserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

So what is a Dobos Torte? I didn't know until this challenge either. This was the info provided to us in the challenge:

The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel. (You may come across recipes which have anywhere between six and 12 layers of cake; there are numerous family variations!) It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely.

The recipe basically called for making 6 thin layers of a sponge cake, chocolate buttercream frosting and making your own caramel topping (made by pouring the caramel over one of the sponge cake layers until firm).

This recipe challenged me in that there were several firsts for me: I have not made this type of buttercream frosting (it is apparently described as an American buttercream frosting, who knew? more info on buttercream varieties etc. here) before, nor have I ever made caramel. I know caramel requires a specific temperature for the candy setting you need, so I set out to buy a candy thermometer before I attempted to make this recipe.

So after all's said and done, here is a slice of my Dobos Torte:

And one of the whole torte.

Visually, this was just a 'meh' for me. I wasn't the only one who had problems with this buttercream frosting not getting to the right consistency as you can see in the above photo - despite chilling it, as soon as it got to room temp, it would just start sliding down the sides of the cake and there was nothing I could do about it. It was messy and yucky looking, but it does get my points for taste as that did not disappoint.

As far as the caramel, it was interesting to make, but I did not care for it in this recipe, as it called for lemon juice in the caramel and it seemed to make the caramel a tad bitter..well, it was either the lemon juice, or I might have cooked the caramel just a tad too long (probably the latter). One tip when working with caramel: ACT FAST! That stuff sure sets quickly and you don't have much time to waste to reinforce the cuts for the sliced caramel-coated topping before they get too hard and sticky.

Another tip when making caramel - definitely keep an eye on the temperature once it starts to climb. It takes awhile to get hot, but once it does, it literally takes seconds for that temperature to go past the candy stage you need it to be at and you end up with a burnt, sticky mess. I'll have to try more recipes to get familiar with candy/caramel making. The taste of the cake however, was very good and I'd make something using those sponge layers again.

Although the cake wasn't as 'perfect' as I'd have liked it to be, I brought the cake in to work the next day anyway. To my surprise, by 8:40AM, it was GONE. It's funny to see people make a mad dash for something sweet so early in the morning but hey, my objective was to not have that cake sitting in my home or I'd eat it by myself, lol. My co-workers seemed happy that they'll have something like this to look forward to every month now :)

So to wrap this up... for this being my first Daring Bakers challenge, I was quite satisfied and I learned quite a bit. I tried a recipe I probably would not have chosen on my own and got to try various methods of making things I haven't before.

I look forward to seeing what recipe challenge I'll get next!