Sacher Torte, part 1

copyright, 2009, Maria Liberati, The Basic Art of Italian Cooking
Today, (here in the mountains of Abruzzo, Italy) while I was enjoying my colazione (breakfast) with radio station centocinque (105) and listening to Betty give her gossip and advice I began to plan out the recipe for today; sacher torte.
While the conversation on today’s radio program was about the new website in Japan that talks about places around the world that have memorable aromas (good and bad) I began thinking of the great perfume of chocolate that will soon be filling The Basic Art of Italian Cooking Kitchen here (in Italy).
Yes that’s right, the famous Austrian Sacher Torte. I learned this scrumptious dessert while studying a bit of Austrian delights in Austria a few years back and have been promising to make this for Alfonso’s birthday for a few too many years.
Now that The Basic Art of Italian Cooking kitchen is here in Italy also and I have some extra hands to assemble everything. Well, I decided to begin this experience. This morning we made and baked the cake, and tomorrow we will assemble the cake. The smell from the ovens were heavenly…. if you love the odor of melted butter and rich dark chocolate. I am guessing that many people do since we had some locals come by and ask what was ‘in the oven’ today?
Sacher Torte was ‘born’ in Vienna, Austria but is loved all throughout Europe and why not? It is just as beautiful as it is delicious a dessert and made primarily with dark European chocolate ,butter ,eggs and apricot marmelade and of  course some sugar and flour. No preservatives, no chemicals just real ingredients.
It has been awhile since I had my culinary classes in Austria and have not made a Sacher Torte for awhile and almost forgot how laborious a dessert this is, but well worth it.
First to locate ‘farina di frumento’ the flour that will give the cake some substance. Not an easy flour to find, but after a trip to the local shop for professional baker’s in town, I found it.
Next the measuring out of all ingredients with our scale, then the melting of the dark chocolate on the ‘bain-marie’ (double boiler). Then the creaming of the butter and melted chocolate, then half the sugar. Then beat the egg whites till peaks form., gently folding in the egg whites and flour and …almost there…butter and flour the spring form pans, place in batter and cook for about 1 hour at 180 degrees centigrade or 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, in our oven here they took less than an hour to bake. But the whole process took up all morning into afternoon.
This more than filled our day and by 2 PM we were ready to sit down and eat ‘pranzo’ (lunch). Stay tuned for tomorrow and the assembling of the Sacher Tortes, and my recipe for the Sacher Torte

For more great recipes get your copy of my best selling book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking at https://www.marialiberati.com
Mangia Bene, Vivi Bene,
Maria