Sachertorte

This recipe has been by far (as if I have done a lot) the hardest recipe I have made. Yes, I do admit that I have a lot to learn, and I am definitely a beginner when it comes to baking, but I have not anticipated a recipe being as hard as they truly can be - such as the Sachertorte. I wish you could see the picture of what it is suppose to look like, but I can promise you, that it is not what you see in the picture below. Dont get me wrong, it was good (not that I had any), but I imagine that it could have tasted a lot better than it did. Let me tell you why.

I wanted to try this recipe, because as you can see, there was another birthday in Matt's office. I wanted to try a cake and I wanted to do a chocolate one. I made the mistake of looking through the book looking for the recipe with the least amount of ingredients that I would have to purchase. Big mistake on my part. Who knew that the one with the easiest looking ingredients would be the hardest to make?!?

It all seemed easy enough until it came to the park where you beat the egg whites (6 of them mind you), until they formed soft peaks. I can tell you that I have NEVER done this before, nor have I watched it being done with my knowledge, so I honestly did not know how hard this could be - particularly without a hand mixer! I have a whisk. A whisk. I am sure that anyone who reads this is already feeling bad for me - because most know that whisking egg whites until soft peaks are formed is very hard to do by hand! Yes, yes it is. It took me literally about ten minutes, and I had to keep stopping, one because I was tired, and two, because I wasnt entirely sure how long it should take and what they should even look like. I you-tubed it, and found that if you have an electric hand mixer, it takes all of two seconds! But no, sweet little ignorant Carla has a whisk. 

So, as I said, it took me about ten minutes to do this, and then it said to fold half of the egg mixture (after adding caster sugar) into the chocolate mixture that I had already put together. Well, it took me so long to whisk the egg whites, that my chocolate mixture was clumping together, and it takes forever to fold the eggs into it. By the time I successfully folded it in, I had to fold the rest of the eggs in, and of course, they started to separate again, but it was before I realized it that I was already adding it, so it was already in my chocolate mixture and too late to fix. 

So I baked the cake and it didnt raise; not sure if this was my fault or if it was one of those cakes that are not suppose to rise, but either way, I had already felt like I had ruined it. Next came the icing. Oh, how I should not be baking when I am tired (this was at 7:30 in the morning when I started this process, and it took until 11:30 until I was done). I was making the icing (melted chocolate, coffee and powdered sugar) seems easy enough. But not for tired Carla. When it called for 5 Tbsp of strong black coffee, anyone in their right mind would know that it should be brewed coffee, and that it would clearly state that it wanted coffee grounds if that is what it wanted, right?!? But, me being me, and being too tired and too early in the game to realize this,  put in 5 Tbsp of ground coffee, not brewed. I started adding the powdered sugar when I realized what I had done wrong, but it was too late, and I didnt have enough ingredients to start over, so I improvised and added some water, and let the icing be. Luckily, it tasted great, albeit probably not what it was suppose to taste like, and everyone in Matt's office loves coffee enough that they probably thought it was wonderful.

So, all in all, it was a success and the office had no complaints, so I didnt mind. I do plan to retry this recipe one day far from now, to see how it turns out a second time. I also veered from the recipe a bit, so it definitely wasnt a true Sachertorte, but it was still enjoyable to make, and although the picture was hard to take (too much going on at the time), it was still a fun celebration of a birthday, and no one complained about the cake - so success!