Thursday, May 22, 2014

Prinzregententorte, ... the one and only

Prinzregententorte



This used to be my favourite cake as a child. Because it is quite a bit of effort to make it's not really a cake that one makes every other week. On top of that it has a decent amount of butter and it may be a vigilant supporter of your coming heart attack.
But nevertheless it tastes awesome! You only live ones and if you haven't enjoyed a Prinzregententorte yet, you may not have lived at all , ...  yet ;) 

Since moving to Australia I have only baked the bastard a few times. The last time - just a few days ago - I made a bunch of three. That was mainly for the "biggest morning tea" initiative. 

Here is the recipe in english. (There are a few variations in Germany, the following is the most common one, I think)

Some about the cakes history on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prinzregententorte

Recipe

Main things to prepare are the butter cream and the bases. The order doesn't matter. As I use instant pudding I normally start with the bases (read further on and it will make sense, .. I hope ;) )

Dough

  • 250g butter
  • 250g sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • some vanilla flavour or the real deal ;)
  • pinch of salt
  • 200g wheat flour
  • 50g corn flour
  • backing power 
  1. Put butter and sugar in bowl. (I melt the butter a bit in the microwave) Beat the hell out of it, while adding egg by egg  - they reckon beat 30-60 sec between adding each egg. (they as in the my german recipe sources )
  2. Mix corn&wheat flour, backing powder, salt, (if u got vanilla in powder form add this here, if its fluid add in while beating eggs into butter)
  3. Mix this well before adding to egg/butter mixture. Then mix the whole thing. This will not be a very solid dough. Similar to spread consistency.

Bake the bases


Now it's time to bake the bases. If you wanna be mathematically correct then you weight the dough and divide it. I just eyeball it. You should get around 7-8 bases and around 24 cm in diameter.

I draw a circle on a piece of paper, then put baking paper on top. ( I pre-cut the baking paper in 30cm x 30cm - 30cm is a common width you can buy in the shop )

The backing paper is quite translucent, so one can see the drawn circle underneath well and that makes it easier to spread the dough to the correct size every time.

Use a normal bread&butter knife to spread roughly a soup ladle amount of dough for each layer.

bake each layer at 200 deg C for around 8-10. if they get colour, take em out. Often they get a bit crispy around the frame and that is ok, as you cut that later when you shape the cake.

Overall the bases should be soft, bit similar to a sponge but not as lofty. 

Let all bases/layers cool down, before assembly

Filling

Now to the filling:
  • Schoklade Pudding
  • 100g Sugar
  • 250g butter
  • 500 ml Milk
Make a pudding with the 500ml milk (here in Australia I use instant pudding, which you can find in Wollies or Coles) If you use a traditional pudding you need to heat the milk and then therefore you need cool it down and stir it while cooling so no skin builds on top!

The instant pudding is made cold, so easy ;).

To make the butter cream, I again melt the butter in the microwave and then let it cool a bit.
Before it goes solid I add the pudding ladle by ladle while heavily beating the butter. 
I add the sugar to the pudding when I make it, but you can also add that to the melted butter before you add the pudding ( just beat it a bit before starting to add the pudding).

Put the buttercream in the fridge, particular if you used warm pudding. (ok, let cool to room temperature first before putting in the fridge, else it may cause some bacteria growth,.. . )

You can also make the buttercream fist before you start on the bases.

Assembly


ok. now the fun part starts : assembly.

Again you can be mathematically correct and divide the weight of the butter cream by 7 for 8 bases (or the number of bases you baked, minus one). I again eyeball it. 

Some recipes ask for a jam layer, .. you can do that, I normally don’t. But if so, then use a white jam ( not  sure "white" makes sense -> I mean apple, apricot, … not a red/berry kind of jam ) This can also be a good way out, if you misjudge and run out of butter cream on your last layer, … 

So basically start with a base and add some butter cream. Spread evenly then add another base, and so on, … 

Once completed you need to cut the edge nice and round (which I didn’t do that well in these photos, that’s why it looks a bit bogan-ish )

The cut offs make a nice snacks for now.

Topping

Recommended is dark chocalte, ( I used milk chocolate, but I think dark is actually better):
  • 200g chocolate 
  • 1 tbs of oil
Brake chocolate in smaller pieces. Fill a pot with water, heat on the stove. Add a bowl that is a bit to big for the pot. Add the oil and chocolate to that bowl, while cold. 
Constantly stir the chocolate while heating up and eventually melts.

Once all is melted spread on the cake. 
Use a knife to cover the sides. 

If you are ambitious you can melt the choloate in two (100g each) batches. Let it dry after the first coat. This will give a thicker more consistent coat.

Add further topping material as you like, ... nuts, berries, m&m's , cherries , ... 

Once done, let everything cool down to room temperature then put in the fridge overnight. 

Enjoy from the morning  onwards !




2 comments:

  1. I'm living in the USA and would LOVE to make this cake.... What is "corn flour?"

    ReplyDelete