Dobosh Debacle

So, I figure that I must post misadventures along the way as well. This is the first time in a long while that I felt defeated by a baking project. :-( So sad - just kidding. Humbling experiences are good for the soul, right! :-)

Carmel topping I eventually scraped off the cake

Go blue dad grew up eating dobosh torte cake as a kid when he visited his grandpa in St. Louis. So, given my love of baking, I decided to attempt to make him a dobosh torte, originating from the Hungarian Dobos torte we believe, for his birthday. We combined things we liked from the Hungarian recipes and the St. Louis version to come up with our own dobosh torte.

The cake is a simple mixture of flour, eggs and sugar placed in six separate 9" buttered cake pan and baked for about eight minutes at 350 degrees. This came from the "Hungarian" dobos torte recipe. The cake has a nice, lightly sweet flavor with a crispy texture instead of a moisture, silky texture like a fluffy cake. If anyone has made authentic dobosh - just let me know if the cake should have been fluffy...

Four layers minus the top layer, which is awaiting the caramel. Yes, it's messy, but it was my first attempt at making a cake in this manner.

So, after making the cake, I made a dark chocolate/chocolate pudding ganache and covered the layers with it (my own creation) instead of chocolate buttercream filling (Hungarian version) because go blue dad likes the St. Louis dobosh filling.

Now I was ready to make the caramel top for the cake. I have never made caramel before or worked with 'hot' sugar, so this is where it REALLY went down hill. Keep in mind, I placed the cake with the ganache in the fridge to keep cool for a few minutes and forgot to bring it back out when it was time to place the hot, cracking, solidifying caramel on it.


Hence, the mess on the floor as photographed above. I splatter hot caramel on the floor, the counters, plates, cutting boards, the stove top - EVERYTHING!!! Plus, the caramel start to set while I frantically tried to pull the cake out of the fridge to get the last layer on it and cut slice marks through the caramel before it got to hard. Oh, I think I let the sugar get to hot and burned it as well, because the caramel tasted like coffee and left a burnt taste in your mouth afterwards. Delicious - not really!! Kaitlyn was sleeping during this drama.

Yes, I know this looks terrible, but it'd been a long day.

So, above is how the cake turned out. I tried to hide the caramel disaster with white buttercream icing like the St. Louis version, which just made it look worse. Later in the evening, I realized I should have done some piping and it would have looked much better, but I was exhausted and defeated by this point. I had really hoped to surprise go blue dad with an awesome cake!! (No, I'm not looking for any pity or sympathy here :-) ).


This is where the story gets better...

The layering turned out pretty good. I now know how to replicate a dobosh torte layer cake from St. Louis or a real Hungarian Dobos torte. Small win there!!!

After we celebrated go blue dad's birthday, we decided the white buttercream icing (made with granulated sugar, flour, butter, milk and vanilla - much silkier, less sweet and more 'buttery' than the regular buttercream icing I make) tasted pretty darn good.


So, I tore off the awful caramel topping and replaced it with the leftover buttercream icing. While this may not have bee the original plan, it tasted much better and we actually enjoyed the leftovers.


So, all in all a learning experience. I would love to taste an authentic Hungarian Dobos torte or at least read a different recipe. I may have a connection there... Also, I will still try to remake the St. Louis dobosh torte with a fluffier yellow cake, ganache or buttercream filling and white buttercream icing. Go blue dad said he preferred my icing and filling to the St. Louis cake, so that's a victory for me!!!

Bye Bye Pa-cee!!

At the end of May, we held an intimate "Bye Bye Pa-cee" party for Kaitlyn. While she was down to just using the pacifier at sleep times, mommy and daddy wanted it to go bye bye for good!




About ten days prior to our family party, we counted down the days with Kaitlyn and told her when she said good bye to her pa-cee, she would get a present to replace it and snuggle with at night.



The balloon idea came from a friend of Kaitlyn's g'am and the story to go along with why we were getting rid of it came from our friend Karen.




We explained to Kaitlyn that she's a toddler and toddler's don't need pacifiers, but babies need pacifiers to stop crying, so we wanted her to send hers to a baby who needed it.


We were amazed at how the balloon took off with two pacifiers attached to it. Granted - the balloon was about as big as Kaitlyn!




We emphasized the toddler/big girl part and the present. Yes, bribery is bad, but sometimes it works so well!!
She said bye-bye to her pa-cee and asked for it for about a week afterwards, but she never cried about it. It took a few weeks to adjust to the new sleep routine, but now she sleeps like a champ (and so do we!).

Vacation to Northern Wisconsin

Kaitlyn and daddy spent a whole week with Pa Mark, G'am Laurie and Tim in northern Wisconsin over the fourth of July weekend. Here are a bunch of photos capturing her first visit to the lake. She loved the water and swam every day. She even learned to use the noodle to hold her torso up while kicking between daddy and G'am in the water. Mommy, G'am Linda and Pa Clinton visited for just three days and had lots of fun with Kaitlyn and the crew. Finally, Kaitlyn also got to meet her extend family, Great Aunt Mindy, Great Uncle Doug, cousin Jack and cousin Peter. She had such a great time!!!

Kaitlyn's in the driver's seat - a common occurrence during this trip.

Pa's trying to teach me the Missouri fight song... Go BLUE!!!

Can't go to Pine Lake without eat some pie!

"Head, shoulders, knees and toes... eyes and ears and mouth and NOSE!"

Playing with my G'am's.

Kaitlyn's first sailing adventure.

"I sailing! I sailing!"
"Look, I helping Pa!"

Yummy, watermelon!

Fun with water and sand.

After two days, Kaitlyn finally decided to try to pet Cocoa.

Kaitlyn and mommy
Daddy learned to filet fish that he, Uncle Tim and Pa Clinton caught.

Chilling with my daddy!

Kaitlyn met a calf, it "moo'd" at her and tried to eat daddy's pants.

"Look at me, I feeding cows!"

Family shot before mommy leaves - Kaitlyn and her daddy stayed the whole week.

Kaitlyn helping Pa do dishes - now why doesn't this happen at home?

Kaitlyn, daddy and Uncle Tim on the 'big' kid slide.

Pa and Kaitlyn on the merry-go-round.

We just think this is such a cute photo of Kaitlyn and her uncle Doug.

Kaitlyn and Uncle Doug on a walk to visit the frogs. Yes, Kaitlyn actually held a frog in her hands.

Kaitlyn and Peter at the camp fire

Time for Smores - yum!!

Kaitlyn with her Pa, G'am, daddy, Aunt Mindy, Uncle Doug, cousins Peter and Jack

"How does this boat work? I do it!"

"Look G'am, I have a stick for the fire."

Kaitlyn holding the pine cones she collected

Cousin Jack and Kaitlyn throwing pine cones in the fire