First attempt at Dobos Torta

Today I realised that this baking ban isn’t going to happen, the addiction to baking something every weekend is too strong. So I decided to embrace it and actually plan and learn to bake some interesting things. I applied to join daring bakers, but unfortunately missed the cutoff day and will have to wait till Oct to start on the challenges. Their August challenge was Dobos Torta. The concept seemed simple enough, but I’m not happy with my execution. It could have to do with the fact that I started at 9pm, I need a bigger fridge or a cooler kitchen, but I think this time it was my lack of experience and the rush to get it finished.

My final torta…

I’m sitting here at 1:34am having a small slice. The texture isn’t perfect but the taste is delicious!

[added the morning after]
Things I learnt:
1. Starting cleaning the kitchen at 9pm is not a good start to baking. I had been planning to make this mid morning, but once the house duties, shopping, dinner etc had been done, it was suddenly 9pm.

2. 200 deg C is too hot on my oven for this cake. The edges of my sponges we browning and burning before the inner part was cooked. This also could have been because I was using a baking tray not baking sheets.

3. Make sure you are really even with your sponge and that it cooks nice and evenly. Spots where the sponge is too thin or not cooked properly will be prone to ripping when pulling back the paper. This is really hard in my oven as the back of my oven is hotter than the front and it is small so the tray can’t be rotated easily. I’m thinking that I might have more luck making a mini version of the cake on a smaller tray.

4. Room temperature is a lot hotter than normal when the oven has been on and the stove. I did let my buttercream cool to room temp before adding the butter but I think this was still too warm. Next time I will chill it in the fridge. Also note to self, make sure there is room in the fridge, which is very hard after just doing the food shopping for the week. My butter was probably a little too soft due to the warmness of the room too. I’ll just have to note to leave it in another place of the house till ready. This made kind of more of a ganache than a buttercream.

5. Leave the caramel longer. I’ve made caramel toffee successfully before, but I was scared of over doing it last night as the recipe said amber. It looked amber in the pot but was not ready and far too runny.

I understand the concepts and errors a little more now and will have to try again once I find some people to consume this one.