Doboš Torte

The most famous Hungarian cake in the world, Doboš Torte, was first made for the Hungarian state exhibition in 1885. It was made out of 8 separately baked layers of biscuit spread over with a cooked buttercream.

The torte’s author was a cook and a pastry chef, owner of a delicacy store and a pastry shop, author of fifteen cookbooks, Jozsef C. Doboš. Thanks to the cake, which achieved great success on the exhibition, Doboš became world famous for it. His pastry shop in the Kecskemet street became one of the most famous spots in Budapest and eating a piece of a cake inside became a matter of prestige.

The original Doboš torte was shipped to many elite pastry shops all over Europe, and the members of the high society, among who were and some crowned heads such as Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, ordered it for their banquets and celebrations. At the time of it’s highest popularity among admiring but also envious competition almost 120 copycat recipes circled. Of course, non of them was even close to the original.

To the surprise of many, years of countless attempts of reconstructing the original recipe were ended by Jozsef C. Doboš himself, who, in 1906, published the original recipe, after what he retired from the public life. His torte, though, became one of the world’s most famous cakes.

Valerija Rodek

Doboš Torte

(adapted from here)

Chocolate Butter-cream

5 eggs
250 g sugar
125 g dark chocolate
320 g butter, on room temperature

With a mixer beat eggs with sugar until fluffy. Cook in a double boiler until thickens, stirring continuously. You’ll know it’s thick enough if when you scratch the bottom of a pot clear mark is visible. Add chocolate, stir and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool completely. Mix in the butter. Leave in the fridge until you prepare biscuits.

Biscuits

6 eggs
6 Tbsp sugar
7 Tbsp flour

Beat the egg whites stiff with a mixer. Add sugar and mix more until shiny. Then stir in egg yolks, one by one, and finaly, carefully whisk in the flour.

Measure the weight of the batter and divide into 10 equal parts. Heat oven on 390°F/200°C. Cut 10 circles out of baking paper, each 20 cm in diameter. For each biscuit you should line 20 cm diameter spring-form pan with a piece of previously cut baking paper, grease paper with some butter and bake 1/10 of the batter you’ve prepared for about 5-6 minutes, or until done. Cover each baked biscuit with damp kitchen cloth. Cut the last biscuit on 16 equal parts and place them on a large oven pan, a little separated from each other, to form a circle.

Caramel

200 g sugar
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp lemon juice

Caramelize sugar on high heat. When it begins to darken, remove from heat and stir in butter and lemon juice. Stir well, return to heat and cook until it everything melts completely. Pour over the biscuit you’ve cut into 16 parts and layered on oven pan.

You can skip this part and not make the caramel and cut the final layer of biscuit. Most of the people don’t eat that part and only leave it on a plate (well, at least in my experience).

Assembling of the cake

Biscuit, layer of butter-cream, biscuit… Until you use all the ingredients. Leave some cream for spreading over the assembled cake. If you decided to make caramel decoration, using a pastry bag place 16 heaps of cream on top of the cake and place each of 16 caramel biscuits over.
  

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The verdict: This is a must try out recipe! It is THE BEST Doboš torte I have ever had! Melita’s recipe is very precise and no way you can fail! I did make one tiny adjustment. As I made the cake in a 20 cm diameter spring form pan and was able to bake 10 thin layers of biscuit out of the batter, I made a little more filling – out of 5 instead of 4 eggs, but I didn’t change a thing in a recipe, only scaled it. If you manage to control yourself and leave the cake in a fridge for a day, it will be even better!