Razzle-dazzle ‘Em: 7 Layer Dobos Torte
I love good food. Especially when someone else prepares it. When daily cooking is left to lazy me, I’m apt to fall back on the same dozen fast and easy — and dull — recipes.
But special-occasion cooking, now that’s something else. If I’m able to find some dedicated kitchen time to prepare a special menu, I can really get into Naked Chef mode: ferreting out exotic ingredients, sifting flour till it films every horizontal surface in the house, stirring, boiling, reducing, and whipping…while the sink overflows with every pot, pan, and utensil I own.
The cookbook I rely on for these occasions is Meta Givens’ Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. My mother had always referred to it, and she bought me a copy when I got married nearly 30 years ago. Pages of my book are now held together by scotch-tape and coagulated cake batter — but I’m never going to part with it, since this two-volume wonder is regrettably no longer in print.
Granted, not all of the topics covered are essential for the contemporary Israeli kitchen. For example, I haven’t gotten much mileage out of the section on how to dress, eviscerate, and fricassee a muskrat.
But the early 20th century recipes, photos, and prose are hopelessly seductive. They produce instant nostalgia for a period when Mom wore a frilly apron and high heels while concocting three square meals a day for Dad and their squeaky-clean 2.2 kids.
I know the above scenario probably existed only in mid-century American sit-coms. That doesn’t matter a bit. Nor does the fact that, had I lived in that time and place, I would have been one of those housewives who, bored to desperation, was guzzling the cooking sherry by 10 AM. There’s just something about the book that makes me thoroughly suspend disbelief, and long to whip up a 3-storey gingerbread house.
These days, when so many of us feel besieged by junk food and are on perpetual diets, the very notion of sweet comfort food starts to seem subversive, evil. So for a welcome change of pace, listen to what Meta has to say about dessert:
“…under the PROPER CIRCUMSTANCES, candy is good…It is a source of the quick energy that is needed during times of strenuous activity…The practice of eating sweet foods for dessert has become established because they give the feeling of satisfaction and completeness to the meal.”
How can anyone resist a cookbook that makes eating dessert seem as virtuous as swallowing a vitamin tablet? Especially when the recipes are luscious and not that difficult or time-consuming?
The epitome of a special-occasion dessert is Meta Given’s Dobos Torte, seven layers of cloud-light cake slathered with a truly decadent chocolate icing.
Tips:
- Don’t even think about substituting margarine for the butter.
- Used copies of Meta Given’s cookbook are available at Amazon.com
Dobos Torte
1/2 c cake flour
1/8 t salt
7 egg yolks
1 5/8 c powdered sugar
1 1/2 t lemon juice
5 large egg whites
Grease well 3 8-inch layer cake pans, sprinkle with flour and shake out excess to obtain a thin coat over greased surface. Preheat oven to 450 F.
Sift flour, measure, resift with salt. Sift the powdered sugar to remove lumps. Beat yolks till lemon-colored, then add sugar and beat 5 minutes. Add flour gradually and continue to beat 4 minutes. Fold in lemon juice.
In separate bowl, beat egg whites until they form soft pointed shiny peaks, then cut-and-fold yolks into whites till blended. Gently spread enough batter over bottom of pans to barely cover.
Bake 4-5 minutes till delicately browned. Cool in pans on cake racks 5 minutes, then loosen carefully around edges. Hold pan up on one edge, start loosening cake carefully and gradually ease it away from pan, placing right-side-up on rack. Repeat process till all batter is baked (6-7 layers).
When cakes are cool, spread Chocolate Torte Filling between layers and over top and sides. Refrigerate till firm. Best after standing at least 25 hours. 12-15 servings.
Chocolate Torte Filling
1/4 kilo semi-sweet chocolate
1/4 cup whipping cream
3 eggs, well beaten
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar, packed
1/4 kilo sweet butter (unsalted)
1/2 tsp vanilla
Melt the chocolate and cream in the top of a double boiler over gently boiling water and stir till blended. Remove from heat and stir in the eggs, then the sugar. Return to heat and stir constantly, until thick and smooth. Remove from heat, transfer to a mixing bowl, and cool over a pan of cold water, stirring frequently. When cool, add the butter bit by bit, beating hard with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla. Spread immediately. Store in refrigerator. Enough for 7 torte layers.