Sachertorte

Well here it is, the very last technical bake of the Great British Bake Off, I will miss the series greatly and miss my own bake off challenge.  Sachertorte was given as the final, and what they called the hardest, technical bake.  Perhaps when they said it was the hardest they meant in terms of how much pressure was on the contestants because, if you ask me, Sachertorte is one of the easiest they have given, though maybe I just think that because I am much more comfortable making cakes than bread or pastry.  I did, at any rate, watch the technical bake with a certain amount of arrogance, knowing very well how to melt chocolate, whisk and fold in egg whites, and make ganache, though I do know that I would struggle if I was under the same amount of stress as the contestants in the bake off, so I do feel sympathy for them.

Anyway, I made the cake mixture without any mishap, melting the chocolate, separating the eggs and combining it all together.  I think I could have managed it without the recipe because I have made similar things many times.  I was still pleased with my work when I took it out of the oven, since it was quite flat and had not cracked, though I may not have done so well if I had not been given the cooking time for it. After letting it cool I sieved the apricot jam (a very bothersome and, in my opinion, pointless process) then heated it and brushed it over the cake.  This is what it looked like at this point.

It is nice and shiny and pretty looking, that is why I took a photo at this point; in case the ganache and decoration went wrong and it didn't look pretty any more.  I was not too worried about the ganache though because I have made it many times before, I was more worried about actually getting the decoration to look nice.  As I have said before, I never really used to focus on the appearance of food that I made, only the taste, so my decorating skills are not what they should be.

The only fault I made in making the ganache was in not breaking the chocolate into small enough pieces and so it had some lumps in it.  I did sort of know this would happen when I was doing it though so it is my own fault, I just was too tired to break the chocolate up more.  This is why there is a quite distinctive lump in the icing, so sorry about that.  I was still more concerned about writing 'sacher' on the top of the cake in milk chocolate; this is the part which I considered to be the hardest and I do not think I was very successful, my writing is a little wobbly.  Anyway, here is what it looked like after completing the decoration.

I think perhaps if I was a master cake maker I would get somebody else to do the writing on the top.  My whole decoration on this cake is not up to the standard it should be, though I tried to take as nice a photo as possible, I thought the rose added a nice touch of colour, the last one still blooming in our garden, well not any more.  My mother was very kind in giving it to me to use for this photo, she also very kindly gave me her last blooming african violet for the next photo; the only two edible flowers we had.

I am quite pleased with the outcome of this photograph, and the cake itself, which I ate directly after taking the picture (just ignore the fingerprint which I left on the top by accident, ganache is very easily markable.)  Overall, however, I was a little disappointed with Sachertorte, I had never eaten it before and I thought it was a little bit bland, though it was still nice and the ganache was tasty.

If you want the recipe to make Sachertorte yourself here is the link http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sachertorte_59630