The Classics

Classic Desserts. Nothing new skill-wise, but this class is a good review of techniques we've already learned and we get to know more about the desserts that are famous around the world.

This week we made Charlotte Royal, Princess cake, and Sachertorte.


Charlotte Royal is the sister cake of the Charlotte Russe (French for Russian). It was invented by French chef Marie Antoine Creme for the Russian Czar. A charlotte russe was traditionally a moulded cake that was lined with ladyfingers and then filled with Bavarian cream. The royal, on the other hand, was lined with jam filled jelly rolls and glazed with apricot glaze.

Bowls make great moulds!

Shiny with glaze

The inside! (We added extra jelly rolls.)

You may recognize the Princess cake from Ikea. The princess cake is Swedish and was named as such because the three princesses of the Duke of Västergötland were fond of it. In fact, the recipe for it appeared in the "Prinsessornas Kokbok" - a cookbook in the 1930's!

Building the princess cake

Filling the cake

Marzipan time

A princess cake is composed of layers of sponge cake, raspberry jam, pastry cream, and whipped cream. All wrapped in pale green marzipan and decorated with a rose. A very feminine "light and fluffy" cake.

Opposite the princess cake is the sachertorte. (It's a German name so make sure to spit on the "ch"!) It was created by Chef Franz Sacher for the Prince of Vienna. One day the prince decided to throw a party and asked the head pastry chef to create him a "masculine" cake. Unfortunately, the head chef fell ill and the task fell to the assistant, Franz! Franz's son, Eduard, continued in Franz's shoes and perfected the torte recipe. Many years later, there was a seven year lawsuit between the Hotel Sacher (built by Eduard and his wife) and Demel Bakery (where Eduard first started serving the cake) over who could claim the title "The Original Sacher Torte", including the right to spell the cake "Sacher Torte" and not "Sachertorte". Sachertorte, with the lower case and no space, means a "cake made in Sacher style".

The sachertorte itself is a cake consisting of chocolate cake, apricot jam, and a chocolate glaze. Hotel Sacher's sacher has a layer of jam in the middle while Demel's is glazed with the apricot jam. Both cakes are actually rather dry as they are supposed to be eaten with a cup of coffee (and a cigar, back in the day). But the cake we made was nice and moist. No dry stuff here!

What kind of cake do you prefer? Light and fluffy or something more dense? I like both, but I think I'd have to go with the chocolate sachertorte because, well, it's chocolate! :)