Newsletter # 60 – The Sacher Hotel and its famous chocolate cake

The Age of Discovery brought many foods to Europe from the ‘New World’ which today we take for granted, including potatoes, tomatoes and corn. Initial suspicion and scepticism of these foods gave way to widespread cultivation and eventually anchored the cuisines of many European countries.

The Vanilla pod and the cocoa bean however would never be able to be cultivated in Europe because of Europe’s temperate climate. This did not stop the Dutch, the Belgians and the Swiss from embracing both these foods – particularly the cocoa bean and all things chocolate.

Advances in The Netherlands in 1828 by the chocolate maker van Houten on how to extract the all important cocoa butter meant the cocoa bean was destined for far more than just a beverage. Later, Lindt, a chocolatier from Switzerland invented the process of ‘conching’ which made chocolate silkier and smoother.

The list of chocolate desserts now available is varied and includes soufflés, lava cake, devil’s food, red velvet cake, flourless, black forest, fudge, brownies and today’s subject, the Sachertorte.

Sachertorte

As chocolate cakes go the Sachertorte has been around longer than most and while the date of its origin is open to interpretation – somewhere between 1830 and 1850 – there is no confusion over who created it – Franz Sacher, an Austrian confectioner. Created by Franz when he was a 16 year old apprentice, the cake proved very popular, eventually achieving worldwide fame after Franz’s son, Eduard, opened The Sacher Hotel in Vienna in 1876. The Hotel is still there and is regarded as one of the world’s leading hotels with customers queuing up to try the Sachertorte with a coffee. You can even purchase one of the hotels famous cakes online.  Alternatively, you can have a go yourself with today’s step by step recipe.

There are many recipes for Sachertorte and even the Hotel Sacher publishes an ‘approximate’ recipe which is the recipe I am using today. I followed the recipe pretty closely and used a 70% chocolate plus a dash of dark rum in the apricot jam.

Sachertorte

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Servings: 12 servings

Course: Dessert

Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• 130 g dark couverture chocolate broken up (min. 55% cocoa content)
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 150 g softened butter
• 100 g icing sugar
• 6 eggs separated
• 100 g castor sugar
• 140 g plain wheat flour sifted
• 300 g apricot jam sieved
• 10 ml dark rum
• 160 ml water
• 250 g castor sugar
• 150 g dark couverture chocolate (extra) broken up (min. 55% cocoa content)
• unsweetened whipped cream to garnish

Equipment

• You’ll need a 24cm spring form cake tin greased and lined for this recipe as well as whisk attachment for your mixer

Method

 

1. Assemble your ingredients for the cake
   
2. Assemble your ingredients for the glaze
   
3. Pre heat your oven to 170c
4. Grease your spring form cake tin with a little butter and line with baking paper
   
5. Carefully melt over simmering water the 130g of chocolate
6. Let the chocolate cool a little after it melts
7. In your mixer bowl whisk the butter, vanilla and icing sugar
   
8. mix until creamy and light
   
9. One by one add the egg yolks to the creamed butter
   
10. Whisk until they are well incorporated
11. Next gradually add the melted chocolate to the butter mixture
    
12. Mix well
    
13. In a separate clean bowl whisk the egg whites and caster sugar
    
14. Mix till meringue like
    
15. Place the egg white on top of the butter chocolate mix
    
16. Next add the sifted flour
    
17. fold the egg whites and flour through the butter mix
    
18. Transfer the mix to your cake tin
    
19. Bake for approximately 40-45 minutes, until the surface of the cake yields slightly to the touch
    
20. When done remove the cake from oven and let cool for 15-20 minutes before attempting to turn out and remove the baking paper
21. Finally on your cake cooling rack let the cake cool completely
    
22. Meanwhile prepare the chocolate glaze
23. In a clean saucepan boil the water and castor sugar for five minutes
24. Remove the sugar syrup from the stove and cool for 5 minutes
25. Stir in the 150g of extra chocolate
    
26. Continue stirring until the mixture is smooth
    
27. Let the chocolate mix cool to just warm
28. Warm the apricot jam (with a little dark rum)

Now we are ready to assemble the cake

1. Using a serrated slice the cake horizontally, leaving the bottom half slightly thinner than the top half
2. Again using a serrated knife gently trim the domed surface of the top half
   
3. Next paint the top of both halves with warmed apricot jam
   
4. Place the top half on top of the bottom half
   
5. Paint the sides of the assembled cake with apricot jam
6. Finally pour the chocolate glaze over the cake using a palette knife to smooth the surface
   
7. Let the cake ‘set’ for a few hours before serving with whipped cream and maybe a coffee
   

Notes

One of the criticisms occasionally aimed at this cake is that the texture is a little ‘dry ‘which some may find appealing.
Serving it with whipped cream or double cream (and a coffee) gives a good balance