Gustav Klimt Torte

Many of the great hotels and pastry shops in Vienna have specialties they refer to as “shipping cakes”—ones that are capable of being shipped from Vienna to anywhere in the world. Needless to say, these cakes need to stay moist and palatable for the long time it takes them to arrive at their destinations—so they are the ideal make-ahead cakes.

This cake, named for the turn-of-the-century Viennese Secession artist, is subject to a large variety of claims of origin. This version was s