4/28- HH6 April Challenge- Sachertorte

 This month's HH6 Challenge was to create a dish or meal from a a country that you have lived in, been stationed in, or visited, outside of the US. Sounds like a fun one, right? Considering I've only really been out of the country once, that narrowed my choices pretty quickly. Back in 2004, before I got married, my family and I went to Europe for 2 weeks. We went to Venice; Salzburg; Mossbach, Germany; Munich; Heidleberg; Vienna; and finally Prague.  

My favorite cities we saw were Venice and Vienna. Coincidentally, those 2 cities had my favorite foods of the trip! Our first European meal was dinner in a very quiet Venice. We found a little tiny restaurant that was mostly empty, sat down and picked our meals. This is where it got sticky. I couldn't remember what I ate, and neither could anyone else in my family! There are no pictures of our entrees, either. The only pictures of that meal are of gelatto. While that was certainly delicious, gelatto wasn't quite what I wanted to make for this challenge.

So, on we go to Vienna. I believe on our last night in the city, we went to Demel and each picked out a dessert to take back to our (super awesome!) hotel. We each picked out a different kind of cake, or torte, and then booked it back to the hotel so we could sample them all. I did take pictures of them before they vanished, but I did not write down anything about what kinds of cakes they were. Once again, nobody else could remember either! My good friend Google helped me out though! I looked up Demel, and through their website figured out that the cake on the far left of the picture was a Sachertorte. Here again, Google came to my rescue and led me to a recipie by Wolfgang Puck. I figured it must be pretty accurate since he's from that region himself. The next obstacle to tackle was to find the time to bake it! I'm late posting this because of Rebecca's birthday (see the previous post for that adventure), Easter, out of town guests, and life in general. Better late than never though, right?

So a Sachertorte is a light chocolate cake that is sliced horizontally into 3 layers. An Apricot preserve sauce is put in between the layers, and then the whole cake is covered with a chocolate glaze. Because I happened to bake this on a particularly humid and monsoon-y morning, the cake didn't rise as weel as it should have, so it was really difficult to slice it horizontally. I ended up with 2 very uneven layers instead of 3 gorgeous ones. I guess I won't be getting a job at Demel anytime soon. :) It still tasted pretty good though! Ok, without further ado, I present you with my Sachertorte!