Sacher Torta

This is an Austrian cake with a long and troubled history. Look below if you would like to read about it.

This is Chef's cake.

I nearly forgot to take a picture of mine but a friend caught me in the act of cutting it to take a sample home. This cake and the chocolate decadence have been the kid's favorites. They are skeptical of something that doesn't look like the cakes Mom used to make.

Sacher Torte History

For more than a hundred and fifty years it has been considered by many as the world's most sophisticated chocolate pastry, and the man who cooked it up was named Franz Sacher (pronounced "ZAHker") when he was 16 years old and working as an apprentice in a pastry shop in Vienna. At the time Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859), a famous and powerful European diplomat, had tired of the usual whipped cream creations called "tortes" that were often served in Vienna, and in 1832 he gave word for his favorite pastry chef to come up with something different for a special occasion. Unfortunately, the chef had fallen ill on the day the pastry was needed, and the task fell to Franz Sacher (1816-1907) to fulfill the request. With the daring and enthusiasm of youth, he came up with a totally new taste in pastry -- two layers of a slightly bitter chocolate cake with a puree of apricot jam connecting them, and completely covered in a shiny dark chocolate glaze. For traditionalists, he added a dollop of the ubiquitous whipped cream Austrians call "schlagober" to the side of the cake, and that's the proper way to serve the pastry even today

The cake was an immediate success and the Sacher Torte became popular throughout Vienna, where Franz Sacher continued making it. In 1876 his son Eduard Sacher opened the Hotel Sacher across from the Opera House in Vienna and continued the tradition of serving the torte his father created. Today pastry chefs all over the world know and serve the Sacher torte, but in Vienna, although the cake is made in countless cafes and bake shops, there are only two places where, by law, they are permitted to write the name "Sacher" on the cake (in chocolate of course) --- at the Cafe Sacher in the Hotel Sacher and at Demel's Coffee house, where they serve a slightly different version of the recipe created and sold to them by Franz Sacher.

Now, here's the surprise. Countless number of people have been to Vienna, sampled the Sacher torte there, and report that "it's dry -- it tastes like sawdust." Nevertheless, despite the fact that the original may well be an acquired taste, there are many adaptations and imitations that are delicious and give the torte an enviable worldwide reputation.

There are several similar versions of this history. I chose this one because it is the same as the history our chef gave us. The internet site where I found this is: http://members.cox.net/jjschnebel/sacher.html