Sachertorte from the Sacher Café, Vienna

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on July 6 2010 | Leave A Comment

It’s a lovely sunny July evening here in Vienna, and about an hour or go I sat down at the Sacher Café for a taste of the Original Sachertorte.

Conceived by the owner of the hotel (oddly enough) Sachertorte is sold the world over, but only this establishment makes the authentic Sachertorte. It’s one of those ‘secret family recipe in a vault’ stories – oft imitated, never bettered and so on.

So, for €5 I sat down to this.

My first thought was that the whipped cream was ‘squirty’ cream. Possibly not authentic, or perhaps nitrous oxide cream dispensers were invented a lot earlier than I think?

My next thoughts were that it was a lot more cake-like than I had expected. The texture seemed to be fairly dense, and the layer og what appeared to be some sort of jam between the chocolate fondant icing and the cake itself looked interesting. The chocolate seal sitting atop the torte was very tempting – one of those things you either eat first or save until last. I opted for the latter.

When I tasted my first forkful I was immediately aware of a light citrus tang from both the jam and possibly the cake itself. The chocolate icing wasn’t as full of chocolate flavours as I had expected, but this is a torte to have with a good strong European coffee, and that little extra sweetness works perfectly with a good quality espresso. When I segregated a piece of the icing with the jam I got a mouthful of sweet, sugary chocolate cut with orangey (but still sweet) notes.

The torte itself was beautifully cooked. Fairly dense, with that brown/muscovedo sugar treacle element in conjunction with a lovely firm texture.

The chocolate ‘Seal of Authenticity’ was a disc of good quality dark chocolate. It could have been from almost anywhere in Europe, and it did round things off in a very satisfactory way.

This was one of those ‘things you really ought to make time to do’ that I decided I’d get on with, and I’m rather glad I did. I’ll quite happily go back for Sachertorte next time I’m in Vienna. Especially if the weather is as good as it was today.

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Comments On This Post

  1. What a wonderfully detailed description! I could almost taste it, great job!

  2. Too. jealous. to. think. straight….!

  3. Sharon

    My husband and I will be in Vienna in June, after visiting Amsterdam and Prague, before visiting and finishing our trip in Budapest. The hotel Sachre is on our must visit list, specifically to try the famous cake. You described the cake perfectly. From my research, the filling between the cake layers is an apricot preserve. What a lovely combination. Can’t wait to try it.

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