Daring Bakers' August Challenge - Dobos Tarte

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful
of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos
Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Here is my version...





I used pecans instead of hazelnuts, and I a boiled fudge frosting for the filling (instead of the listed butter cream). I also had a "slight" problem with the caramel wedges that were supposed to adorn the top of the cake, so I threw on some Pepperidge Farm Geneva cookies just to give it the finished look.

I also took some liberties with the baking directions and just used pans instead of the complicated process of spreading the batter free form into a circular shape and then trimming the edges once it was bake. Say What?? I took convenience to another level and used disposal pans....

And pre-cut 8" parchment rounds. The rounds were just a little too big for my 8" pans, but it didn't seem to cause any problems.



My lazy short-cutting came into play again during the batter mixing. I just dumped the whole eggs into batter and didn't bother with whipping the egg whites separate. I'm such a lazy slug. May be I should change the name of my blog. "The Lazy Baker," I wonder if that name is taken?


Here are the pans waiting to go into the oven...

And the cakes just out of the oven...


Next variation (have you noticed a pattern here) was the frosting. I'm not a big fan of butter cream, so I whipped up a boil fudge icing to use as the filling. You can scrape the butter cream off the sides and top of a cake, but it is kinda hard getting it out from between those little layers.

Here is the fudge at the rapid boil stage...

And the first layer of cake getting a coating of warm fudge filling. Just pour it on and let it do its thing. Yummm...


Here are a few layers in place with some of the filling oozing out. Oh la la.



I put a layer of butter cream over the whole cake and then pressed the chopped pecans into the sides.

Next came the fiasco with the caramel wedges. I had a little stove top fire, so instead of nice wedges of amber caramel, my guests got crispy, chocolaty Geneva cookies.





update: I checked and both "LazyBaker" and "TheLazyBaker" blog names are taken. Bummer.