Dobos torte (or “torta Dobos,” as it’s called in Italian) is a traditional Hungarian cake composed of five layers of sponge cake filled with chocolate buttercream and topped by a sixth cake layer glazed in caramel. Given that Trieste (home to the real-life Pasticceria Penso) was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Dobos is naturally a popular dessert there.
For some time, I’ve been split on my vision for making a mini torta Dobos. On one hand, Penso’s cake was frosted with a very light chocolate buttercream, decorated with chopped nuts around the sides, and topped by a flat layer of caramel-glazed sponge cake. On the other hand, while developing a torta Dobos recipe for my cookbook Flavors of Friuli, I had drawn inspiration from cakes sampled in both Vienna and Budapest. My version had a slightly darker chocolate frosting and was topped by wedges of caramel-glazed sponge arranged at an angle. Also, instead of decorating the sides with nuts, I used a cake comb to give the buttercream a ridged texture. Ultimately, for my mini project, I decided to make two cakes, using elements from each version.
For the cake layers, I used a color mix of Fimo vanilla, Premo ecru, white, and translucent. After cutting out very thin circles, I textured the top layer of each cake lightly with a toothbrush and shaded it with soft pastels for a golden brown baked effect. For one of the cakes, I cut this top layer into wedges and textured the cut edges with a needle tool. After baking, I glazed each piece with “caramel,” made from clear liquid Sculpey mixed with alcohol ink. I baked the slices again to cure the liquid clay and then gave them a coat of gloss varnish for added sheen.
I left the second cake top whole but scored it into slices with the blunt edge of a blade. Since the liquid clay has a self-leveling effect, the scoring marks were no longer indented, so I made a shallow slice through the caramel glaze, just deep enough to leave a slight mark.
For the body of the first cake, I stacked alternating layers of sponge cake and chocolate frosting, the latter made from a mix of Premo burnt umber, white, and translucent. So that the layers would show after being frosted, I cut out a slice to display separately and textured each of the cut sides with a needle tool.
Since the other cake will be displayed whole, there was no need to alternate layers. Instead, I just created a similarly sized cake from scrap clay (hence the random mica particles showing in the photo). After baking, I attached the caramel-glazed layer with liquid clay, then baked again.
To frost the outside of the cakes, I used the same “chocolate” color as the layers, mixing it with clear liquid Sculpey until spreadable. Wanting a ridged effect on the first cake, I created a mini cake comb from the serrated blade torn from an aluminum foil roll. I attempted to drag this around the sides, but it didn’t work as cleanly as I’d hoped, and I therefore needed to use a metal tool to reinforce and touch up the grooves. I baked the cake once again before proceeding.
Prior to the final assembly, I used a wet brush to apply soft pastels in a thin line of golden brown along the bottom edge of the cake, similar to how a real cake would appear after baking. The cut wedges, which I’d reserved for decoration, had not been textured or shaded on the bottom. The lack of texture won’t be apparent, but I did want them to have some golden brown color. I first used a wet brush with soft pastels and then a bit of acrylic paint.
As further decoration, I sculpted and baked a swirl from the soft frosting mixture and used this to create a mold out of Amazing Mold Putty. The mold allowed me to quickly pop out multiple swirls for the cake, using the original frosting mix. After spreading the top of the cake with a thin layer of frosting, I then propped the caramel-glazed wedges atop the swirls before baking one final time.
I covered the sides of the second cake with chopped hazelnuts (left over from several other projects, including these cioccolatini), pressing the nuts into the frosting while it was still raw.
I created the frosting border around the top using the same mold-making technique as described above, arranging the tiny swirls prior to baking. Lastly, on both cakes, I used matte varnish on the exposed frosting to give it a subtle sheen.
For the display, I glued the cakes onto scalloped circles of gold-covered cardstock. (See my post on torta Sacher for my process of making these.) To create a takeout tray for displaying the slice of cake, I used a rectangle of gold-covered cardstock and ran a small ball tool around the inside rim to make a crease.
Here are the cakes on display inside the bakery.
