“Mexican Chocolate” Dobos Torte

This was a fun one to make! It was different, but I enjoyed the process of pulling it all together.

Chef Alex Guarnaschelli is my all time favorite chef to watch on television. She’s such a boss lady and I love it. I always see her post pictures of this cake on her social media and knew I’d one day have to make it.

So basically, I learned that this cake is her adaptation of a Dobos Torte. Dobos in Hungarian means “like a drum” but the cake is actually named after Hungarian pastry chef Joseph Dobos.

The concept is that the cake should have hot caramel poured over the top, right off of the stove so that it goops over the cake and hardens as it cools. After the caramel becomes hard, it’s suppose to crackle once you cut Into it! It does get kind of messy!! I had to knock it with the back of my knife to loosen it up before cutting into it.

Anyway, as I was crafting this recipe together, I thought “what if I put a Mexican chocolate spin on this?!” The idea of that being paired with the hard caramel just sounded like music to my ears! Like I’ve mentioned before I always keep my Mexican vanilla stocked in the pantry, and by incorporating that with some cinnamon, mmmmm it would taste just like abuelitas hot chocolate! Never had that? Click here and thank me later.

My husband Luke said he enjoyed the cake and frosting, but he’d rather have the caramel not be hard. I told him that was the whole concept of this recipe, but he wasn’t really interested, lol. Now that I’ve made this, I feel inspired to make an entirely different Mexican chocolate cake. Possibly with the same frosting but with moist dark chocolate cake? Would anyone be interested in that? Hmmm, maybe I could do that and possibly have it served with a soft caramel vs. the hard crackly kind. Let me know if that sounds good!!

I ended up burning myself while tempering with the hot caramel. Please be careful if you make caramel. The sugar has to get very very hot to melt down and to become amber in color. After my sugar was dark in color, I let it rest for a few minutes, then I poured it into a bowl to cool more. I let it rest for a couple more minutes, and it was still scorching hot when I touched it!! Ugh, I burned my left pointer finger and my lip lol. 😭

So there you have it. Here is my “Mexican chocolate” version of the Dobos Torte. Hope you enjoy

Also, stay tuned for another dessert entry tomorrow. My aunt came by with some home grown “Poteet” strawberries that my grandfather planted. I can’t wait to use them!!

Ingredients:

For the cake

- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 sticks of unsalted butter
- 2 cups of sugar
- 6 eggs
- 2 tsp Mexican vanilla 
- 2 tsp cinnamon

 

For the frosting:

- 12 ounces semi sweet chocolate
- 2 tbs heavy whipping cream
- 2 sticks of unsalted butter
- 2 cups confectioners sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 1/2 Mexican Vanilla

For the caramel topping:

- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tsp light corn syrup

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9 inch cake pans, then lightly dust with flour. To prepare the cake batter, sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon in one medium sized bowl. In a separate bowl, begin beating the butter until creamy with mixer. Then add the sugar and continue mixing until fluffy. Next, add in the eggs slowly as you continue mixing. Then you will add the vanilla into the batter. Take the flour mixture from the separate bowl and slowly blend the dry into the wet ingredients. Careful not to over mix.

Take 1 1/2 cup of batter into each of the cake pans. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick is inserted into the center that comes out clean. Anywhere between 15-25 minutes. Remove from the oven when they are done and set on baking rack to cool. Once cooled, flip cakes over onto parchment paper. Clean off the pans, re-grease and flour them, then pour the remaining batter evenly into the pans. You can use this method to achieve having four layers, or you can carefully slice your two large cakes in half horizontally. I lost my knife that allows me to be able to do that, so I had to bake my four layers separately in my two baking pans, lol.

Clean the paddles for your mixer as you will need to use them for your chocolate frosting.

For the frosting, in a medium bowl, add the chocolate with heavy cream and simmer over a double broiler. (this is when you use a pot filled 1/4 of the way up with water and boil over medium high heat, then you set your bowl over the pot and allow the contents to cook slowly without having them submerged into the water or in the pan.) When your water is rapidly boiling, you may want to reduce heat down some, place the bowl over the pot and stir your chocolate around until it melts. When the chocolate is melted, set aside and allow to completely cool.

Take the cooled chocolate and cream in the 2 sticks of butter with mixer. Once well combined, add in the 2 cups of confectioners sugar 1/2 of a cup at a time. Then finally add cinnamon and vanilla.

Time to stack your cakes. Begin by placing first layer on your cake stand. Add about 1/2 cup of frosting to the top of layer and spread evenly over, continue by adding the second layer of cake to the top of the chocolate and repeat method of adding another 1/2 cup of frosting to the top, spreading around evenly. Continue till the last layer of cake is added. Frost the top of the cake and all around the sides.

To make the caramel, heat the sugar with the corn syrup in a large pan over low heat. Allow the sugar to melt down, stirring often so it doesn’t stick and burn. Whisk around the entire pan making sure the sugar is cooking evenly throughout. Continue to cook the sugar until smooth and it has turned to the brown caramel color.

Take the skillet and allow to cool for a couple of minutes. I poured my caramel into a second bowl, and it didn’t really help the cooling process and just made me have another dish to wash. So i’d suggest pouring the caramel onto the cake straight from the skillet. Allow to goop over the tops and side of cake. Try to make the caramel a thin layer all over.

If the caramel becomes cool or hard, warm it gently over low heat to loosen it again. Let the caramel cool and completely harden on top of the cake before serving.

Thank you for reading!!