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.
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.
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!
46 Comments
Your photos are wonderful, and this torte looks amazing. Thanks for sharing!
That Hungarian speciality looks extremely delicious! I’ll have to try it once…. Beautiful!cheers,Rosa
Absolutely delicious .. love the photos .. Laila .. http://limeandlemon.wordpress.com/
The last time I had a Dobos Torte, it was from a bakery. It had only five or six layers and didn’t look half as good as yours. Wonderful photos!
I think I will try this. My mother in law emigrated from Hungary and always made this for me for my birthday. She made it sound and look so easy.
OMG, just look at the layers. A taste of heaven I’m sure!
Bez riječi sam ostala. Morat ću jedanput odvojiti cijelo popodne jer vidim da se stvarno isplati.
I think this looks utterly delicious!
Jel moze recept na srpskom?
I don’t know if I would be able to control myself and leave this in the fridge for a day… it looks too good!
I am so glad you chose Dobos torte, and liked it!!! I had a problem restraining myself from eating it right after assembly! :)Thank you for a great post, and evaluation! Awesome photos, as always!
predivno izgleda…zapala mi je za oko i mislila sam je praviti cerki za rodjendan ali me plasi ova karamel kora od gore pa se neckam… hm… tvoja je savrsena…
what a delicious cake. I have to try this. you always make amazing recipes
Very beautiful, Marija! You’ve just reminded me that I haven’t spoken to a friend of mine in awhile – she makes equally beautiful Dobos.
Radila sam ju svega 2-3 puta u životu jer je stvarno “pipkava”, ali mislim da svatko, tko se zaista zanima za kulinarstvo, mora bar jednom probati napraviti ovu legendu :)Tvoja izgleda tako kao da je već spremna za muzej: savršeno
beautiful cake and photo’s- all those layers!
Uvau, prekrasno ti je ispala torta. Kao i Maslinka ja se nikako ne mogu odlučiti napraviti dobošicu jer se pribojavam karamel kore na vrhu torte. To mi se čini jako zahtjevno, a tebi je ispalo prefektno.
Nekada davno mi je bila omiljena torta i sad mi se čini da je nisam jela sto godina.Ovo tvoje parčence izgleda savršeno
Marija, this cake is on my to do list. I loved it when I saw it on Melita’s blog. I will definitely make it as soon as i get a chance. I can feel the yum already:)
Oh, oh, oh… Madre mía, so beautiful recipe¡¡¡I remember havinf this torte when I was a little child at one if the best “Cafetería” in Madrid… so nice memories.I could not remember what was the name given to that dessert, but IT WAS THIS¡¡Thanks so much for the recipe as well as for the pictures, you are a great fotographer.Best regards from Spain.
this looks fabulous – i dont know how you find the patience!
I LOVE this torte, Marija! My best friend is Hungarian.
I just made this cake a couple of days ago and it came out pretty good except for the caramel layer. How did you get yours so thin and how did you get it out without of the pan without cracking? I thought of replacing one of the tbsps of lemon juice with one of cream, to keep it a bit on the softer side. But other then that it was a lot of fun to make. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Beti! Glad you liked the recipe
About the caramel… You need to start cutting it before it hardens completely. When it’s about half way there.
That cake looks divine. I love that last picture – All those layers of buttercream. Yum!
Vidim da ti već imaš napravljanu Doboš tortu, a baš očekivala sam tvoj odgovor za DB i tvoju mini varijantu tortice.
@cosmo2503 – pa, da, bilo mi glupo da objavljujem isto, jer sam pravila po Melitinom receptu, koji bajdvej ne bih menjala ni za sta na svetu
yeah ..taste of heaven…..I can say this for sure because I'm hungarian:D This is my favourite torte.Anyways one of my favourites is the 'kürtős-kalács' ,too.I have never thought,that it's famous. Réka
prelijepa torta pravim odmah
Someday, someday…this looks amazing, but I have to admit I am intimidated by all those layers. When I finally get up the nerve I will be back here!
Great blogger, Thank you for delivering the outstanding blog. I found it useful.
I really appreciated prepared this, thanks!
I’m not able to see the recipe, it takes me to a blogger site. Is this normal? I reallllyyy want to make this cake!
Yes, it’s OK. It will take you to the site where is the original that I used.
It won’t let me on the bloggers site. It says it is “protected.” Do you know if there is another place I can find the same recipe?!
JoAnn, it seems that Cafe Chocolada has gone offline. I do have this recipe written on Serbian version of the blog and will translate it into English asap.
I too would love to try this receipe but can’t get to the recipe.
Marija first of all I love reading your blog and your recipes are amazing. I’d love the dobos torte recipe too when you have time to type it out – thank you so much
Hi there! Fantastic cake! Do you have the recipe as Cafe Chocolada no longer has it? Thanks!
Katie, I will post the recipe soon.
hi Maria,
I was gonna say the same thing as Katie did ;) I have made that exact recipe 3 years ago when I saw it on Cafe Chocolada, and it was amazing! if you could repost it, it’d be great! thank you!
Sta se desilo sa puterom u buter kremi? Ja znam,ali nedostaje taj deo da bi recept bio potpun, promaklo vam je,
pozdrav
Upravo sam dodala
Hvala puno!
I did it
Thank you for the recipe.We liked it a lot 
Thank you!
I just love a home made tasty dobos !
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