A while ago I was challenging myself to turn popular cakes into donuts. After successfully making the sticky toffee pudding donuts, I thought why not some sacher torte inspired donuts? This is one of my favorite cakes of all times and I would like to try a donut-shaped, small version of it. And that’s how the idea was born.
For those who are not familiar with sacher torte, it is a rich chocolate cake, created for Prince Metternich in Vienna back in 1832. It is served with whipped cream to break down the richness of the chocolate. Some variations include marzipan, some do not. Personally I prefer it with marzipan. But if you don’t like it you could omit it.
If you’d rather make a full-sized sacher torte cake, I have a delicious gluten free recipe made out of oat flour. You can find it here.
A major benefit of making donut versions of regular cakes is that they bake much faster. On the other hand, it takes a little longer to assemble all of them. All in all the total baking and preparation time is still shorter compared to baking a regular-sized cake.
These donuts will make a great dessert for a birthday party or potluck. I guarantee you will impress everyone. You can fully assemble the donuts at home, but bring the whipped cream separately. Add the cream to the donuts right before serving. If you do it too soon, the could become soggy.
For this recipe I used a regular, 6-cavity metal donut baking pan and it resulted in 12 donuts.
See more donut recipes here.
Here you have the recipe for the sacher torte inspired donuts:
Sacher Torte Inspired Donuts
Ingredients
For the batter:
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup (150 g/ 5 ¼ oz.) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (100 g/ 3 ½ oz.) granulated sugar
- ½ stick (60 g/ 2 oz.) unsalted butter at room temperature
- ½ cup (120 ml/ 4 ¼ oz.) cream (35% fat content)
- 50 g (1 ¾ oz.) bittersweet chocolate
- 3 tbsp. (20 g/ ¾ oz.) Dutch processed cocoa powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp. unsalted butter at room temperature for greasing the pan
For the filling:
- 60 g (2 oz.) apricot jam
- 30 g (1 oz.) marzipan
For the glaze:
- 100 g semi-sweet chocolate
- ½ cup whipped cream
Instructions
For the batter:
- Pre-heat oven to 180 °C (350°F).
- In a bowl sift the flour and cocoa powder, then add the baking powder. Mix them with a whisk and set aside.
- Gently melt the butter over low temperature. Make sure the butter does not bubble. Once melted, set it aside and allow it to cool a little.
- Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie and set aside to cool a little.
- Crack the eggs into another bowl, add the sugar and beat at high speed with an electric mixer. The mixture is ready when almost triple in volume and light in color. Add the vanilla extract, salt, cream, melted chocolate and whisk until well incorporated.
- Using a spatula, add the flour mix to the egg mix in 2-3 steps, mixing gently after each step. Make sure the flour is well incorporated, but do not over mix. Once the flour mixture has been incorporated, fold in the melted cooled butter. Allow the batter to sit for 5 minutes.
- Grease the donut pan with room temperature butter. Pipe the batter filling ¾ of each cavity and bake for 10 minutes, or until donuts spring back when gently pressed.
- Once baked, take the pan out of the oven and allow the donuts to cool in the donut pan 2-3 minutes at room temperature. Transfer them to a rack and let them sit until completely cooled.
For the glaze:
- Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie. Set aside to cool a little.
For the filling and assembly:
- Work the marzipan with your hands to soften it, then roll it out very thinly.
- Cut the donuts in half length-wise. In the middle, spread one layer of jam, one layer of marzipan, then a second layer of jam. Place the upper half of the donut over the second layer of jam. Pour melted chocolate over the top of each donut. Allow the chocolate to dry (approx. 10-15 min).
- Serve with whipped cream.
