Birthday Cake For Maharajah

Somehow I've been remiss in sharing all the deets for the cake I baked for the Maharajah a few weeks back...

Somehow we managed not to indulge in a Sacher torte while in Vienna. And by "somehow," I mean, thanks to too much walking and being agitated and the line was very long at Cafe Sacher, I didn't feel like standing (in pain) to wait to sample this cake, at the very place where it was created/conceptualized.

And somehow when we traipsed over to Cafe Demel, we STILL managed not to indulge. So it seemed only fitting that when it was the Maharajah's birthday, THIS WAS the cake I would make.  

I checked out all possible recipes online, and Wolfgang Puck's Sachertorte recipe seemed the most straightforward, so that is the recipe I used. With one minor tweak: I used five whole eggs. I can't bring myself to waste that spare yolk! Oh, and I decided rather than have Maharajah and I fight over the very last of the tasty chocolate I brought back from Budapest, I'd melt it up (as well as a bunch of other chocolate which has been languishing--hilarious, no?) for the ganache.

I decided rather than bake it in a round pan and possibly fuck up cutting the cake into two layers, I'd bake it on a half a sheet pan, to make a loaf shaped cake, with four cake layers.

I lined the pan with parchment (as I do have trust issues with cakes NOT releasing!), and this is what I discovered upon inverting it after cooling: apparently I did not incorporate everything sufficiently. Oh well, it'll get obscured by the layers and the ganache, so whatever...

I employed a trick I saw online to cut the cake and then snip the parchment with scissors, to make transitioning the layers. BRILLIANT IDEA!

I then took the apricot preserves and jacked them up with a bit of the Mount Gay Rum I brought back from Barbados in January, and the layers very quickly assembled!  Photo NOT shared: OCD Baking = Measuring the cake with a T-square to make sure each layer is the same size--despite the perspective of this photo, all four slices are identically sized.

I have heard that many people complain about sachertorte being dry. Perhaps whomever baked the cake was a bit skimpy with the jam/rum? Perhaps? This sucker was moist!

I then transitioned the tray to the freezer to set up for about 1-2 hours before I totally enrobed the whole shebang in bittersweet ganache, and half assed decorating it with white chocolate ganache and non-pareils. Okay, the decorating is a bit on the humble side, and looks a bit bukkake-ish, but whatever bitches, it was tasty. Very tasty.

 "The Money Shot"

Stay tuned as in a couple weeks I'll be posting my own birthday cake--something different, but a white Sacher (and that will pretty much be the only thing in common with this cake, the filling/s, etc, will all be entirely different), but the sponge will be a white chocolate sacher.