Sachertorte attempts
2011-12-10
Chris Shenton


The recipe at Epicurious looks reasonable and has useful videos of a
pastry chef demonstrating the more fussy techniques.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sachertorte-231043

Unfortunately, the recipe text and video technique don't always
match. He mixes the sugar in after forming egg white peaks, and he
adds the chocolate to the water/sugar mixture after brining it to
234F.


2011-12-10 Attempt #1: Chocolate glaze crystallized

I used Calumet chocolate for the cake and an intense Valrhona for the
glaze. I think next time I'll reverse them -- the glaze is a bit
intense and the cake a bit meek.

I also used cranberry sauce (Cooks Illustrated recipe, elsewhere on
this site) since I had some and the flavor worked well. Next time, in
addition to whizzing with a stick blender, run it through a sieve and
spread it with a silicon pastry brush and finish with an offset metal
spatula.

For the chocolate glaze, I brought used 1 C sugar to 1/2 C water and 4
ounces of chocolate. I brought the water and sugar to 234F, perhaps a
bit more, then stirred in the chocolate -- as the video chef did. I
then put it back on the heat as he did, and I think this is what
induced crystallization. The glaze cracks like concrete with flexing,
and you can taste the crystallized texture of sugar.

After cooling and stirring for a minute, I poured it over the
cranberry glazed cake and it set up in seconds: I couldn't spread it.
Next time, don't reheat the chocolate and spread quickly with an
offset spatula.

Perhaps I should practice with less extravagantly priced chocolate,
like Trader Joe's 70% cocoa.