Kitchen Experiment: Esterhazy Torta, a First Attempt

Happy 2019, everyone! I hope that 2018 treated you well, and that 2019 will be even better to you. And for my first offering of 2019, I present to you a little kitchen experiment: Esterhazy Torta!

I thought I'd kick off the year with someone I've been wanting to try ever since I did the Doboš Torte in 2017. Decadent confections of Central Europe hold a lot of fascination for me, and this delight from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire is quite an unusual treat. A good start to what I hope is a year of shameless experimentation.

2018 was my least prolific year on this blog since 2016, which makes sense as 2017 was the most prolific year of my blog ever. I suppose I used up all my ideas in 2017! And this year had a punishingly long hot summer, which curbed the baking output somewhat. But I have a lot of good plans for this year, including more videos (I got a nice bit of practise in last year, and learnt from a multitude of mistakes) and designing a cookery book for my own personal entertainment. Who knows, I might release it some day.

But in my own real life outside of the blog, I already know that 2019 will bring at least two wonderful things to my family. Firstly, I'm getting married in June to my best friend and the love of my life, which will be the best thing to happen to me in my life so far. And secondly, I will be an aunt! My oldest brother's daughter is due at the end of April, or the beginning of May, and she will be born in Cavan, where my brother and his wife will be living from February onward.

Once the Christmas feasting is over and forgotten about, I will start on my wedding cake trials. I will try a cupcake wedding cake, and a traditional tiered cake.

But, back to the cake!

Esterhazy Torta is a dacquoise cake, which is basically a fancy French term for a layered cake made from nutty meringues, sort of like macaroons. Dacquoise cakes can be layered with all sorts of things, like creme patissiere, whipped cream, melted chocolate, or buttercream. This cake is made of delicate walnut dacquoise layers, sandwiched with vanilla and amaretto flavoured French buttercream, which is a style of buttercream that uses an egg yolk custard. It's very, very similar to Ermine buttercream, like in my red velvet cake.

Having made this cake, I can assure you it's absolutely not my thing at all. It sounded great on paper, but in reality it was far too rich and sickly. Nuts, vanilla, eggs, butter, and amaretto together is just unrelentingly sweet. If you like sugarbombs, then this is for you.

How I Made this Cake

To make the dacquoise layers, I made a simple French meringue with one egg white and one ounce (30 grammes) caster sugar. I folded in an ounce of ground walnuts, which had been lightly toasted in a dry frying pan. I divided the mixture in four (although, in retrospect, in three would have got nicer, thicker layers) and spread it out thinly into four 4 inch circles. I baked them at 180C for 6 minutes.

To make the buttercream, I gently cooked the egg yolk, an ounce of sugar, and an ounce of milk in a heatproof bowl over simmering water until I had a nice, thick custard. I allowed this to cool completely before whipping in two ounces of room temperature butter to make an icing.

To assemble, I brushed the cake layers with amaretto, and layered the cake and iced the outside. I packed chopped walnuts onto the sides, and feathered the top with some dark chocolate.

How I Would Do This Cake Differently in Future

I think in future to take the edge off the sweetness, I would use some cream cheese in the icing to add a note of tanginess. I would also use dark rum in place of amaretto, which has a much harsher quality. I would also make the dacquoise layers thicker and the icing layers thinner, more like a glue to hold it together. I would also use a traditional glacé icing topping, maybe made with a little lemon juice, to balance the sickliness with some more tang.

Keep your eyes peeled for further experiments!

You are a Pirate!

If asked the ultimate question 'Pirate or Ninja', I would always go for ninja. Jussayin'. I'd also go as far as to make a guilty confession that when the day comes that I am to be married I will not budge over my wish to have a fancy dress wedding where I would be dressed as a pirate. I was a kid when I saw 'The Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl' in the cinema, and I was converted there and then... (although I did go out with a ninja; pirates are in short supply these days).

Okay, I have a confession: I'm a sucker for all things cute. I love cute things, small things, tacky things, kitch things; you name it, if it's ridiculous I'll probably like it. As for what that has to do with baking, well, let me tell you. I was in my local neighbourhood Dealz and I found a kit for making pirate cakes: it came with 24 pirate cake cases, and 24 little Jolly Roger cake decorations. Before I knew it, I had bought them... as if by magic.

I then began to ponder, what does a pirate cake taste like? What do pirates eat, or what kind of flavours would one associate with a pirate? I did a little brainstorm: pirates -> boats -> sunny places -> Caribbean -> bananas -> coconuts -> limes -> rum -> cane sugar -> spices. So much to work with!

In all honesty, I don't like bananas; I like banana bread, but that's about it, so bananas were off the list. I had made coconut and lime fairy cakes in the past, inspired by a cookery book I was given by an acquaintance for Christmas two or three years ago, and that was a delicious combination; but I didn't have the ingredients to make coconut cakes or icing. After some thought, I settled on rum and brown sugar cakes with lime buttercream icing, and they were the shizz.

(I apologise for the quality of the photos: I didn't have my trusty blur-banishing tripod with me, so I had to rely on my shaky hands.)

Following the same technique as outlined in my basic sponge cake post, I used this recipe:

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) soft brown sugar instead of caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon rum essence (available from the Home Baking aisle of the supermarket) instead of vanilla essence
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) butter or block margarine
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) sunflower oil

I also made a basic buttercream using this recipe:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) icing sugar, sifted
• Rind of 1 whole lime
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 - 2 drops each of green and yellow food colouring (I used the liquid kind)

As you can see, it's a normal sponge but I replaced all the caster sugar with soft, dark brown sugar, and added a teaspoon of rum essence with the vanilla essence. This was a little bit of an experimental guess, and although the cakes where quite nice, I wouldn't choose to make them again. The icing was the best bit, being made with shed-loads of lime juice and lime rind; in the process of beating the icing together, the green colour from the rind mildly coloured the buttercream. It didn't colour it enough for me, though: I added a few drops of green and a few drops of yellow to get the perfect limey green.

But my adventures with the pirate cases didn't stop there. A friend was visiting from Roscommon (of all places) and as an afternoon activity we made some pirate cakes for my brother, who was feeling ill. These were just vanilla cakes with raspberry icing, but in true Mr Freeze style I coloured the raspberry icing luminous blue. Why are raspberry flavoured sweets and lollies always coloured blue, I wonder...?

The dragon-smiley faced one in the middle was designed by my visiting friend. It's definitely the coolest one there.

And have a gratuitous shot of the inside of the cake... just for me to show off my fantastic taste in butter-flavoured sandwich spread, and whatever that is next to it on the work surface.

Hopefully the next time I get an inch for pirate cakes, I'll have the right ingredients to make coconut cakes and lime buttercream. Trust me, it's one of the nicest combinations there is for a cake. Don't forget to toast a handful of desiccated coconut in a frying pan or wok to sprinkle on top, because it's very yummy.

Here's some trivia for the day: desiccated coconut in German is kokosraspel. Lidl has taught me something today; and I'm not sponsored by Lidl, I promise.