Torte and Kuchen

Torte and Kuchen Torte is a German word which corresponds fairly closely to gateau. Its sister-word, Kuchen, can usually be translated as cake (large or of biscuit size); but in this connection see also quiche, a derived term. Torte appears in the title of many celebrated C. European confections, including sachertorte. A few other examples are:

• Engadiner Nusstorte, a speciality of the Swiss canton of Engadine, is really a kind of pie consisting of two layers of rich sweet short pastry enclosing a filling of caramelized sugar mixed with cream and walnuts.

• Dobostorte, named after Dobos, a famous Hungarian chef who created it in 1887, is made by building up five or more thin circles of savoy sponge sandwiched with layers of a creamed filling, often flavoured with chocolate. The top layer of cake is covered with a layer of sugar caramel, marked into portions.

• Linzertorte is a Viennese pastry made from a dough of flour, ground almonds, butter, and sugar, flavoured with lemon zest and cinnamon. Raspberry jam is spread over this base, and covered with a latticework of strips made from the dough, before baking.

• Mohntorte is a poppyseed cake, originally a speciality of Silesia. It is made from four layers of sweet short pastry, interspersed with a filling of ground poppyseeds (see poppy) mixed with sugar, chocolate, raisins, candied peel, and almonds.

• Zuger Kirschtorte, a speciality of the canton of Zug in Switzerland, is made from three layers of japonaismeringue and a layer of Savoy-type sponge, sandwiched with pink-coloured kirsch-flavoured buttercream, and covered with toasted almonds.

Although Kuchen often refers to something less fancy than a Torte, one of the most famous Kuchen is very fancy indeed. This is the Baumkuchen (tree cake), which may be seen in the windows of specialist bakeries in Vienna and Berlin. Sarah Kelly (1985) has described it thus:

A metre or more in height … Baumkuchen is so called because of the concentric rings, like those of an ageing tree, which appear on a cross-section of the cake, and because of its tree-like shape, characterized by indentations which resemble the shaft of a screw. Unlike most cakes, Baumkuchen is grilled, not baked, on a rotating rod which turns horizontally in front of a red-hot grill plate. Each time a coating caramelizes, the baker applies a new layer of rich mixture—the process which produces the concentric rings. When the mixture runs out, he presses a long wooden ‘comb’ into the soft ‘tree’, giving it the characteristic indentations, before glazing it first with apricot and then with a clear or chocolate icing.

Baumkuchen is of particular interest because of its history. Barbara Maher (1982) traces its evolution in Germany from 15th-century monastery kitchens through the famous cookery book of Rumpolt (1581) to modern forms and to a remarkable eulogy by the German writer Theodor Fontane. She also notes that Dorothy Hartley (1954) had found an English manuscript recipe from the 14th century which provided what was essentially the same thing.

Streuselkuchen (crumble cake) can be a plain rubbed-in cake (see cake-making) with a cinnamon-flavoured crumble topping. A more elaborate version, called Apfelstreuselkuchen, has a layer of apple (or other fruit) purée between two layers of crumble.