HUNGARIAN CAKES: RIGÓ JANCSI, DOBOSTORTA

Rigó Jancsi is a Hungarian chocolate cake or torte is named after a romantic liaison.

The nineteenth-century Hungarian Princess Chimay traveled to Paris with her husband, went to the restaurant where the violinist Rigó Jancsi  (1858 - 1927), was performing and was so instantly smitten with the Gypsy, that she gave him her diamond ring that very night. Eventually, after a series of desperately passionate dead of night trysts, the Princess left the Prince and their two small children and married Rigó Jancsi. On their wedding night Rigó Jancsi took Princess Chimay back to Székesfehérvár, the place of his birth, where they slept in the bed in which he was born.

A sentimental Hungarian pastry chef, inspired by this romantic love story, created the Rigó Jancsi cake with soft dark ganache nestled between two thin layers of rich chocolate cake that are covered with a dark chocolate glaze.

The Rigó Jancsi cake is an important national treasure to Hungary as the Sascher torte is to Austria.

Dobos torte (Hungarian: Dobostorta; )  is a famous Hungarian cake named after its inventor, a well-known Hungarian confectioner, József C. Dobos (1847–1924) in 1884. It is a five-layer sponge cake, layered with chocolate buttercream and topped with thin caramel slices.
Dobos's aim was to make a cake that would last longer than other pastries, in an age when cooling techniques were limited. The caramel topping helps keep the cake from drying out.

 Dobos Torte was first introduced at the National General Exhibition of Budapest in 1885; Franz Joseph I and his Empress Elisabeth were among the first to taste it. The cake soon became popular throughout Europe as it was different from all others. It was simple but elegant, as opposed to the multi-layer, flaming cakes of the age. Its other secret was its use of fine buttercream, which was very little known at the time; cake fillings and frostings were usually made with cooked pastry cream or whipped cream. The chocolate buttercream and the batter of the cake were both invented by Jozsef C. Dobos.
Dobos Torte is known everywhere in the world and there are more than one hundred recipe variations. It is a commonly made torte in the upscale hotels, restaurants and pastry shops of the world.
( Can be seen on this picture the grave of Jozsef C. Dobos in the Farkasret Cemetery ( Budapest)