PRINZREGENT TORTE
Austrian 8-layer chocolate cake
I made this recipe for my boyfriend on his birthday and he asked me to marry
him (I did). I'm not saying for sure that the Prinzregent Torte is why Don
wanted to marry me, but I've always worried that it might have been. It is a
magnificent recipe that always evokes incredulous cries of pleasure from
people that I serve it to. The cake is a lot of work, so I only make it
about once a year, but the people that I make it for feel very special.
Ingredients
(Serves 2-8)
Cake
- 260 g salted butter
- 210 g sugar
- 0.5 ml vanilla extract
- 4 eggs,
(large, or 5 medium)
beaten.
- 150 g cake flour
- 75 g cornstarch
- 5 ml baking powder
Filling
- 500 ml chocolate pudding
(extra strong)
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 220 g powdered 10X sugar
Frosting
- 30 ml bitter cocoa powder
- 30 g melted sweet butter
- 40-60 ml boiling water
Procedure
-
In an electric mixer,
whip the salted butter. Add sugar, vanilla, and eggs. Beat smooth.
-
Mix flour with cornstarch and baking powder and sift a second time (you
sifted it once before you measured it, right?). Add flour mixture to egg
mixture, stirring constantly.
-
Make 8 layers, each less than
5 mm
thick, by baking each in
the bottom of
a 20-cm
springform layer pan. Do this by cutting a round of
baker's parchment that exactly fits the bottom of the layer pan, then
using a spatula to spread the dough evenly over the parchment. Make sure
that it doesn't get too thin at the edges.
-
Bake each layer for 7 minutes in a preheated
200C
oven. Stack the layers separated by waxed paper.
-
Make the pudding. Use more chocolate in the pudding than you would normally
use. If you want to be lazy and use pudding from a mix, then add
15 ml
of top-quality cocoa to the pudding mix. Stir the pudding while
it cools so that it does not congeal.
-
Beat the unsalted butter until it is very smooth. When the butter and
pudding are about the same temperature, add the pudding to the butter to get
an even, smooth buttercream.
-
Use the pudding/butter mixture as mortar, and layer the cake together,
spreading the pudding/butter evenly between the layers. Make sure the layers
are even, and parallel; if they are not, or if one is not straight, you can
mend things with a little extra pudding here and there. Do not put pudding
on top of the topmost layer, and try not to get too much on the outside
edges.
-
Make a chocolate frosting: sift the powdered 10X sugar and cocoa together,
add the melted butter while stirring constantly, then add boiling water.
-
Frost the cake, taking pains to make sure the sides are perfectly smooth and
the top is perfectly smooth. Let the cake sit at cool room temperature for
at least an hour before serving.
Notes
If you are not an experienced baker, you should be warned that in recipes
like this it is important to measure exactly and to follow the instructions
exactly. People who prefer to cook by testing, tasting, and adding more
ingredients should avoid intricate baking.
These layers are baked in the bottom of a springform pan. Such a pan bottom
is
20 cm
in diameter, and has a raised lip that is about
2 mm
high.
It resembles a miniature pizza pan. I have never succeeded in making this
torte with layers bigger than
25 cm
20 cm
is easier. The baker's
parchment is crucial and there is no good substitute, though
buttered kraft paper (from shopping bags) will work in a pinch. Use a new
piece of parchment for each layer. If you don't make the layers straight,
then when you pile them up, the cake will be mounded up in the middle or
will sag down in the middle or will tilt to one side.
If you are not an experienced cake froster, then make double the recipe of
frosting. Unskilled frosters usually use too much frosting, and you don't
really want to run out. You can charge money to people who want to lick the
spoon if there is any left over.
Rating
Difficulty:
rather difficult.
Time:
1 hour.
Precision:
measure carefully.
Contributor
Delight Covill
Fairchild Camera and Instrument
Recipe last modified: 14 Feb 83
Original header
From: guest@shasta.ARPA (Delight Covill)
Newsgroups: mod.recipes
Subject: RECIPE: Prinzregent Torte
Date: 21 Dec 85 06:45:15 GMT
Organization: Fairchild Camera and Instrument, Gaithersburg MD
Approved: reid@glacier.ARPA
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