Sachertorte

Sachertorte is a chocolate sponge cake covered with chocolate glaze and filled with apricot jam. The apricot jam is either under the glaze or in the middle of two sponge layers. The cake was invented by the Austrian Franz Sacher, either in 1832 for Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich, or in the 1840s.

The Hotel Sacher and Demel pastry shop in Vienna serve the cake, while it is also popular in other parts of Austria and in other German-speaking countries. In the 20th century, they battled over the cake's ownership, trademark, and whether the original cake had one or two layers of sponge. Both of their cakes were made with butter, chocolate, eggs, flour, and sugar, but their exact recipes were kept secret. Hotel Sacher serves the cake with whipped cream.

History

The Sachertorte was invented by Franz Sacher. He worked as a chef in Vienna and Pressburg (modern-day Bratislava, Slovakia) for Prince Metternich of the Austrian Empire. He was trained under Metternich's chef Chambellier. It is unclear, however, exactly when he did so. One story says he made the cake in 1832 for Metternich and his friends. However, according to an interview Sacher gave in 1906, he created the cake in the 1840s at his restaurant in Pressburg. Several food writers have indicated that the cake was created in 1832, with his son, Eduard, also claiming in 1888 that Sacher created the cake for Metternich. Eduard claimed that Metternich liked the cake.