We grew up with french pastries and Desserts at home all the time.
My mother had some knowledge of Austrian cakes and cooking and would present us some of her creations every once in a while.
However our food at home was a 90% French.
I had studied Hotel management in college and learned THE Austrian/ Middle European food.
This of course leased my mum a lot.
I would bring home pastries in abundance and show her some of the stuff we had learned.
One of those pastries was the "oh so famous" Esterhazy Torte.
🇦🇹 A little history behind the Esterhazy Torte
The Esterhazy Torte was named after the Hungarian Prince Magnate Paul III Anton Esterházy de Galantha.
He was at the service of the Austrian Hungarian Habsburg Emperor in the 19th Century. The Esterhazy palace is located in Burgenland Austria.
The Original Torte has five layers and is filled with a Butter filling.
The "spider web" cover design is known as Esterhazy pattern.
Nowadays, square cake cuts are common as well and I have often tasted different type of fillings (Rum instead of cognac or more cream then butter).
Even the key layer ingredient of hazelnut is often substituted with almonds or walnuts.
This cake, in my opinion, represents the pinnacle of all pastry creations in this world.
I have barely seen coffee houses or pastry heavens selling the Esterhazy torte abroad.
Remember when I had mentioned some months back, that my oven had died while baking a complicated cake?
Well, it was Esterhazy Torte that killed our oven.
I was forced to use the old wood oven to finish this creation!
Ah, that was one trip, I tell you!
I have made this cake a couple of times and I have tested a few recipes.
Some recipes out there from the web and from books are just so wrong!
Seriously, my mother was shocked once, when she saw 1 litter of milk for ½ packet of custard powder.
It would have ended up in a mess, if she hadn't known better
In this recipe I have cut the amount of Butter for the filling
This helps with the filling begin softer and healthier.
I used Rum in it instead of Cognac and the layers were made with Almond flour.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
For the base layers:
- 5 piece Egg Whites
- 100 Gram Sugar
- 200 Gram Almond flour
- 1 Tbs Vanilla sugar
- pinch Salt
- Butter to grease the Form
For the Cream filling:
- 750 ml Milk
- 100 Gram Sugar
- 100 Gram Instant Vanilla Pudding
- 200 Gram Butter
- 2 Tbs Dark Rum
For the Icing:
- 200 Powdered Sugar
- 1 Lemon
- 1 teaspoon Cocoa Powder Unsweetened
To assemble:
- Almond slices
Instructions
- We start with the base layers. Beat the Egg white and Sugar to a stiff snow.
- Carefully fold in the Almond flour, pinch of Salt and the Vanilla Sugar. It should stay airy!
- Grease the cake form well and add in the egg white Almond flour mixture ½ an inch high. We need 4 base layers! Bake each layer separately at 180 C. for about 10 mins.
- Continue with the cream filling. Keep a pot with ⅔ of the above mentioned milk and sugar on the fire and mix ⅓ of the milk with the custard powder. Once the ⅔ amount of milk is hot, add in the ⅓ custard milk mix and mix well with a whisk. Keep on whisking on medium heat till it thickens well. Take form the heat and keep to cool.
- In a bowl, beat the butter fluffy and add the Rum. slowly pour in the cooled custard and mix it well. Keep the finished cream mixture for some more time to cool in the fridge.
- To assemble the Torte, place the first base layer on a baking sheet and add a ½ inch thick layer of cream on top equally.
- Carefully place an other base layer on top of the custard, following a layer of cream.
- Again the same procedure, add an other base layer and cream on top.
- At last, place the top cover layer.
- In a bowl, combine the Icing sugar and Lemon and mix it smooth for the Icing. Take out 3 Tbs of Icing sugar and mix it separately with the cocoa powder. Keep aside.
- Take the remaining custard cream and, seal the cake borders with it.
- Now pour the white Icing sugar on top of the cake layer cover and equally spread the icing before it gets hard.
- Pour the dark icing sugar into a icing bag and pipe the content from the center to the outer parts in a spiral form. Take a toothpick to hand and pass from the center out 8 lines and another 8 lines from the outer to the center, to create the classic Esterhazy design as shown.
- Add the Almond slices to garnish at the Torte border, where you had added the extra custard before.
- Keep in a cool place before serving!
When we were in Budapest the Esterhazy torte was served everywhere, especially at all the cafes and patisseries, even in the snack bar at the baths. I loved it and sometimes had it several times a day, but have never seen it anywhere else. In Budapest the cake was not almond, perhaps hazelnut or walnut. I'm wondering if you can direct substitute hazelnut or walnut flour for the almond. Also the cake did not have lemon flavor in the frosting. When we were in Salzburg they had a variation with almond. I see recipes on the web with chocolate filling but we did not see that anywhere in Hungary or Austria. This recipe,looks much more like what we saw in Budapest, except as noted above.
Hi Van!
Oh yes the Esterhazy Torte is one of the treats that remained from the Austrian Hungarian Empire. This is one of my favorite Torte cakes and just like you I had trouble finding it in certain places in Central Europe. You are right some Esterhazy cakes are made with hazelnuts, walnuts is another variation. I feel you can directly substitute the almond flour here with hazelnut flour. Walnuts are a bit more oily so not sure about directly substituting the almond flour amount with walnuts. Surely worthwhile to try it out, so to see how much walnut flour may be needed in the recipe. I did notice that the Esterhazy cake was often made with lemon frosting in the western parts of Austria. I am originally from the west, in fact Salzburg is an hours drive and the Esterhazy posted here was recreated according to what we are used to in this area of Austria. I have never seen a chocolate version of the Esterhazy torte in Austria, I did realize that there are such recipes in the internet, yet I have no idea how this came to happen.
Well, I hope you find the time to recreate this cake at home. It's a load of work but so worthwhile and if you need any assistance, just let me know. =)
I ate this cake in Budapest several yrs. ago but it did not have the icing on top, just whipped cream. It was so good that I took a box full on the train to Bucharest. I ate it all before we reached the city. It was made with hazelnuts and some Kirsch. I'm going to make it now.
I'm jealous of your childhood filled with French pastries and desserts. I wish I was your sister (to get benefit of both French and Austrian goodness! ;)). This is so pretty, Helene! What's the blue thing? Is there any meaning for it?
Yeah,... would have been fun. A Japanese sister cooking up sushi would be great as well! 😉
The blue thing is a collectable plate from a set. The date behind is 1890 something and it's from north France.
Hi Helene! I have always wanted to make tortes but have not venture to that yet. I am definitely going to roll up my sleeve and try this out. Glad you show the step by step. This Esterhazy Torte looks divine and perfect. Wish I could make it as pretty as yours. Thanks for coming over too. Do stay in touch! Cheers, Jo
Well, when it was invented, the Austrian-Hungarian empire was still one and whole. Somebody told me that in Hungary it might be called Dobro. It's famouse in Austria and you will see it served a lot in the local coffee houses there.
This is a gorgeous pastry that I could happily eat the whole thing myself! love that it's flourless and with almonds. pinned to make this soon! I'm surprised this torte is not famous, they obviously don't know what they are missing.. might become famous after your post 🙂
lol yeah who knows right? 😉