Better late than not at all..

So I have realized it has been ages since I have participated in a Daring Kitchen challenge, so for the last Daring Baker's challenge I decided to give it a go. The challenge was for October 2014, with posting to occur prior to November 1, 2014, so since today is the 4th, I am obviously late. The good thing though is that I am here today and am making attempts to get it together again in the blogospher. So here goes the post...

Blog checkin line:

The October Daring Bakers' challenge was brought to us by Korena of Korena in the Kitchen. She took us to Austria and introduced us to the wonders of the Sachertorte. 

Now let me start by proper pronunciation, I have mispronounced this my entire life, but that is no surprise to anyone who knows me. I struggle terribly with knowing how to "sound" words out.. So I have always called this sasher-tort when apparently according to the number of videos I watched to just get the feel for the cake it is properly pronounced sacker-tort; and so there you have it the introduction to Sachertorte an Austrian cake that my husband and coworkers loved. I was not fond of it, as well I may have said in the past, I do not care for chocolate that much. The cake however was a fun challenge and was beautiful once it was all put together. I did have a few problems with following the directions; I really need to remember to read all the way through a recipe prior to attempting to finish it.

So what is Sachertorte; well according to good'ol wikipedia it is a chocolate cake that was created and developed by an Austrian by the name of Hanz Sacher in1832, they also share that December 5th is apparently National Sachertorte day. You can find more information from wiki here. What I can tell you about the Sachertorte I made is that it is a chocolaty spongy cake that has a filling of apricot glaze, that I was actually supposed to place all over the cake, however neglected to read that part in the recipe and only placed it in the center of the cake, oops; the cake is then enrobed in a chocolate glaze that is somewhat thinner than ganache. I have to say I am not sure how I was able to get the glaze to turn out so perfectly because my candy thermometer has gone missing and I had to "guess" the right time to add the chocolate to the hot molten water sugar mixture, but it worked out in my favor. The glaze appeared to be the most difficult thing among the other Daring Bakers, but that is a group of bakers that are willing to keep chipping away at it. If you are interested in giving this cake a go I would highly recommend the recipe that was provided by this months hostess Korena, you can find the recipe here.

And now for my mother's favorite part of my blog the photos with commentary!

I was looking through my photos trying to find all the lovely pictures I took of the process while I was mixing and preparing my Sachertorte and was surprised to learn that my photos are gone, I mean not completely gone, I still have the ones that I took on the phone but they are certainly not the better batch; they however will have to do.

The first Perfect slice, this cake required a bit of whipped cream as it is a dryer cake which according to the hostess is common among European cakes. I have to add too, that I had a friend at the house while I was finishing this cake up, she was surprised to see that I was whipping cream. 

Prior to removal from the pan the cake sat and cooled, the texture of the top at this point was much like a chocolate meringue, delicious and light as air. 

Yes that large-ish missing section of the top was eaten while I was making the glaze. 

This is the cake cooling after I added the chocolate glaze, I was really pleased with how well my glaze did, even without my candy thermometer. 

My piping skills clearly are about as good as my ability to take non-blurry photos, but I felt it was important to see that I did pipe on the top as was in the challenge. 

After the cake had time to set up some I could not resist cutting it, I wanted to know that every thing was in place and that the chocolate glaze was not going to be runny. 

And here is the final photo, the perfect little slice with whipped cream to accompany the cake. I wonder had I followed the directions regarding the apricot glaze would it have made much of a difference.

As I have said before many times, there is nothing I enjoy more than experiencing a culture, a country, and travel opportunity by the plate, and here is yet another example of traveling from my own couch. I hope you enjoy. Thanks for taking a look!