Torte

Not to be confused with tart, tort, or torta.

Torte

A serving of Sachertorte at the Hotel Sacher, Vienna
Type	Cake
Main ingredients	Cake base Filling: buttercream, mousse, jam, or fruits
Media: Torte

Chocolate torte with decorated top

A torte (/ˈtɔːrt/;^[1] from German: Torte (German pronunciation: [ˈtɔrtə]), in turn from Latin via Italian: torta) is a rich, usually multilayered, cake that is filled with whipped cream, buttercreams, mousses, jams, or fruit.^[2]

Ordinarily, the cooled torte is glazed and garnished.

Tortes are commonly baked in a springform pan. Sponge cake is a common base, but a torte's cake layers may instead be made with little to no flour, using ingredients such as ground nuts or breadcrumbs.

Origin

Food writer Julie R. Thomson has called the burnt almond torte from Prantl's Bakery in Pittsburgh the best cake in America.^[3]

Whiskey torte

The best-known of the typical tortes include the Austrian Sachertorte and Linzertorte, the German Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, and the many-layered Hungarian Dobos torte. But other well-known European confections are also tortes, such as the French Gâteau St. Honoré.^{[citation needed]}

In Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine,^{[citation needed]} and Russia cakes are usually called tortes without differentiating between cake and torte. In Polish, as an example, the word torte is translated into Polish as tort, but tort can be also translated as layer cake or cream cake.^[4]

Icing

An element common to some tortes is sweet icing (exceptions are several French tortes, such as Gâteau Mercédès and Gâteau Alcazar). When the cake is layered, a thick covering of icing is placed between the layers, and there is almost always icing on the tops and sides of the torte. An example is the whiskey cake. A number of European tortes do not have layers. Some, for instance German-style "Käsesahnetorte", are unbaked.

Well-known European tortes

• Dobos torte
• Sachertorte
• Esterházy torte
• Kyiv torte
• Linzer torte
• Swiss roll
• Napoleon torte
• Gâteau Pithiviers
• Princess cake
• Prinzregententorte
• Runeberg torte
• Tarta de Santiago
• Black Forest gateau
• Smörgåstårta
• St. Honoré cake

See also

• Torta

References

1. "Torte". Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary Online. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
2. "torte". easteuropeanfood.about.com. Archived from the original on June 30, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2011.
3. Thomson, Julie R. (2014-04-14). "Thank You, Pittsburgh, For The Greatest Cake America Has Ever Made". Huffington Post. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
4. "tort - tłumaczenie słowa – słownik". Ling.pl. Retrieved 2016-01-24.