Sachertorte

Snapshot

Dense chocolate sponge, apricot jam, firm dark chocolate glaze. The recipe is not public. Hotel Sacher Salzburg holds the trademark. Served with unsweetened whipped cream on the side. The traditional instruction is to eat it without. The traditional practice is to eat it with.

The Story

In 1832, Franz Sacher was sixteen years old and working as an apprentice in a Viennese kitchen when the head chef fell ill and he was asked to produce a dessert for Prince Klemens von Metternich. The cake he made became one of the most replicated and debated objects in culinary history. Franz’s son Eduard later refined the recipe at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, and the cake was established. But the recipe was never published, the Hotel Sacher protected it, and when Demel, a competing Viennese confectionery that claimed its own connection to the family, began selling cakes under a similar name, a legal case that lasted nearly a decade had to decide who owned the Sachertorte.

Hotel Sacher won the right to use “Original Sachertorte.” The composition is a dense, not-too-sweet chocolate sponge, split and filled with a thin layer of apricot jam, then enrobed in a firm, mirror-smooth dark chocolate glaze. The apricot jam does two things: it provides a slight fruitiness that breaks the density of the chocolate, and it acts as a barrier coat that gives the glaze something to adhere to. The whole structure is designed to be firm and sliceable, not mousse-like or loose.

Hotel Sacher Salzburg on the banks of the Salzach River serves the same cake under the same trademark. The setting, a grand hotel in a city of baroque architecture, gives the ritual its proper weight: a slice arrives on fine china with a pot of coffee and a small jug of Schlagobers on the side. Eat it however you choose. The tradition of arguing about the cream is part of the experience.