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Dobos Cake (/‘doboʃ/, Hun­gar­ian: dobostorta) is a famous Hun­gar­ian cake, invented by and named after a well-known Hun­gar­ian con­fec­tioner, József C. Dobos (1847–1924) in 1884. It is a five-layer sponge cake, lay­ered with choco­late but­ter­cream and topped with thin caramel slices. The sides of the cake are some­times coated with ground hazel­nuts, chest­nuts, wal­nuts or almonds but the orig­i­nal cake is with­out coat, since it was a slice of a big cake. Dobos’s aim was to make a cake that would last longer than other pas­tries, in an age when cool­ing tech­niques were lim­ited. The caramel top­ping helps keep the cake from dry­ing out. The cake is also often called ‘Dobos-torta’ or ‘Dobostorta’.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is my Dobos Torte…  We made ours rec­tan­gu­lar and topped it with a poured caramel that set hard but before it did I scored it with a knife into por­tioned pieces.

I will get the recipe entered tomor­row (Sat­ur­day 2/21)

The guys that work with my Hus­band really enjoyed this treat!

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The Ital­ian phrase tirami su lit­er­ally trans­lates into “pick me up” which makes sense once you hear that this espresso laden treat was served to Venet­ian cour­te­sans between roman­tic con­quests to pro­vide them with an energy boost!  Ooh la la! (no that’s French)

Actu­ally, I haven’t been able to find evi­dence to sup­port this and it appears this dessert is of  more recent times.  Who cares!  Is what I have to say!  This dessert is too good to worry about who made it first and when…

Any­way, I have always loved this dessert and have a recipe for it that is quite easy to pre­pare and then enjoy!

My ver­sion has light sponge lady fin­gers around the edge with lay­ers of the same cake soaked with espresso flavoured sim­ple syrup.  Then there is a fill­ing made with mas­car­pone and cream with a few other ingre­di­ents thrown in for good mea­sure.  I’m sali­vat­ing just think­ing about it so I will get the recipe typed up as quickly as pos­si­ble for you!  PLEASE don’t be deterred by how long this recipe looks… I have just spelled it all out step by step which makes it look a lot longer!  It’s absolutely worth the effort!

Com­po­nents

2 lb. 12 oz. Ladyfin­ger bat­ter
9 fluid ounces Sim­ple Syrup
2 fluid ounces Cof­fee or almond liqueur
1/2 fluid ounce Cof­fee extract
1/2 fluid ounce Vanilla extract
3 pounds Mas­car­pone Cream Mousse
Choco­late Ganache for dec­o­rat­ing
Choco­late dec­o­ra­tions, as needed

Ladyfin­gers

Ladyfin­gers are made from a sponge­cake bat­ter that is piped into finger-length strips. After bak­ing, these soft cakes may be eaten plain as a cookie or petit four. They are equally good when dried out in the oven, like bis­cotti. These ver­sa­tile cakes are used to line the mold for a Bavar­ian dessert. For con­ve­nience, the bat­ter may be piped close together to form a strip after bak­ing and used to line a mold or torte ring.

Ingre­di­ents

3 ounces Corn­starch
4 ounces Bread flour
6 Egg yolks
6 ounces Gran­u­lated sugar
6 Egg whites
1/2 tea­spoon Lemon juice

Method

1.    Sift the corn­starch and flour together.

2.    Whip the egg yolks with 2 ounces (60 grams) of the sugar until thick and creamy.

3.    Whip the egg whites until foamy. Grad­u­ally add 2 ounces (60 grams) of the sugar and the lemon juice. Con­tinue whip­ping to soft peaks, then add the remain­ing sugar grad­u­ally and whip to stiff peaks.

4.    Fold approx­i­mately one-quarter of the egg whites into the whipped yolks to lighten them, then gen­tly fold in the remain­ing whites. Fold in the flour mixture.

5.    Place the bat­ter into a pas­try bag fit­ted with a large plain tip. Pipe 4-inch– (10-centimeter) long cook­ies onto paper-lined sheet pans.

6.    Bake imme­di­ately at 425°F (220°C) until lightly browned, approx­i­mately 8 minutes.

Sim­ple Syrup (Cake Syrup)

Ratio: 2:1

Ingre­di­ents

16 oz Sugar

8 oz Water

Method

Place water and sugar into saucepan and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and allow to cool before adding flavourings.

Mas­car­pone Cream Fill­ing
Yield: 3lbs

Ingre­di­ents

1 lb. 5 oz. Mas­car­pone , warmed to 105°F (40°C)
9 Egg yolks
8 ounces Gran­u­lated sugar
5 fluid ounces Water
1/2 ounce Sheet gelatin, soft­ened
1 pint Heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

Method

1.    Place the warmed mas­car­pone in a large bowl.

2.    Make a bombe bat­ter by whip­ping the egg yolks in the bowl of a mixer fit­ted with the whip. Cook the sugar and water in a saucepan until the syrup reaches the soft ball stage 240°F (115°C).

3.    Pour the sugar syrup into the yolks, with the mixer run­ning at high speed. Pour in a steady stream between the side of the bowl and the beater. Once all the sugar is incor­po­rated, whip one more minute at high speed then reduce to medium speed and whip until the bombe mix­ture cools to approx­i­mately 110°F (49°C).

4.    Add the soft­ened sheet gelatin to the warm bombe bat­ter. Stir until the gelatin dis­solves completely.

5.    Fold the bombe bat­ter into the mas­car­pone cream.

Ganache
Yield: 2lbs

Ingre­di­ents

1 pound Bit­ter­sweet choco­late
1 pint Heavy cream
1 fluid ounce Almond or cof­fee liqueur

Method

1.    Chop the choco­late into small pieces and place in a large metal bowl.

2.    Bring the cream just to a boil, then imme­di­ately pour it over the choco­late, stir­ring with a rub­ber spat­ula to blend. Stir gen­tly until all the choco­late has melted.

3.    Stir in the liqueur.

4.    Allow to cool, stir­ring fre­quently with a rub­ber spat­ula until the desired con­sis­tency is achieved.

Assem­bly of Tiramisu

1.    But­ter and flour two paper-lined full-size sheet pans. Using a plain medium tip, pipe half of the Ladyfin­ger bat­ter into 4 disks mea­sur­ing 7 inches (17.5 cen­time­ters) in diameter.

2.    To make the strips of ladyfin­gers to line the ring mold, pipe the remain­ing bat­ter into ladyfin­gers 4 inches (10 cen­time­ters) long placed close together so they join at the sides and form a strip the entire length of the sheet pan. Bake as directed.

3.    Lightly oil and sugar 4, 7-inch (17.5 cen­time­ter) torte rings. Place them on a paper-lined sheet pan.

4.    Cut the strip of ladyfin­gers in half length­wise. Trim the strips of ladyfin­gers on each long edge to fit evenly inside the ring molds.

5.    Posi­tion the ladyfin­ger strips inside the rings, cut to size to make a tight fit. Place a ladyfin­ger disk on the bot­tom of each ring.

6.    Com­bine the sim­ple syrup, liqueur, cof­fee extract and vanilla extract. Moisten the cake with half of this syrup.

7.    Divide half of the Mas­car­pone Cream Mousse between each mold.

8.    Place the sec­ond ladyfin­ger disk in the rings and moisten with the remain­ing cof­fee syrup.

9.    Fill with the remain­ing Mas­car­pone Cream, lev­el­ing it to the rim.

10.    Refrig­er­ate or freeze the tortes for 2 hours.

11.    Remove from freezer and cover the top sur­face with a thin layer of  choco­late ganache, or sprin­kle lightly with cocoa pow­der to gar­nish. Remove the rings then dec­o­rate the tortes with choco­late dec­o­ra­tions of your choice (I made roses from choco­late mod­el­ing fondant).

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Notes:

I made this fancy tear shaped cake by plac­ing card­board and heavy plas­tic strips in a large 14 inch round pan to achieve the shape I wanted.  LOTS of tape and smaller plas­tic molds were used to get the shape right.

Orig­i­nal recipe source:  OnBak­ing — Laben­sky 2005