Absolutely delicious! At first I thought it was going to be a disaster because both cake layers fell apart as I was removing them from the pans. I had to kind of patch them up and skip the step of slicing them in half and putting icing between them. In spite of that it turned out great and every one wanted seconds! My mother is picky when it comes to cakes but she raved about this one! Works great as a birthday cake because you can pipe a message on top in place of the lattice design. Next time I will probably use parchment paper to make the cake easier to remove from the pan.
This torte/cake was a lot of work for me which is saying something since I made an Inside out German Choc. Cake that took four hours! While this didn't take nearly as long the process of splitting the layers and trying to make the thing look presentable was a challenge. I found the cake rather crumbly (but not dry) therefore not so easy to separate. They also sunk in the middle making the process of getting "even" layers very difficult. Not sure if this is due to the high altitude where I live as I sometimes have issues with this when baking. My suggestion from what I learned split the batter into four parts instead of two and adjust the cooking time to less to avoid having to cut the layers up. Also to get them out of the pan easily I highly recommend lining the bottoms of the pan with parchment paper I did this and they came out without a problem. I made the recipe exactly how it was written except I used almonds instead of walnuts and added a little bit of almond extract instead of vanilla to the frosting. It tasted good but I wouldn't say it was "to die for" since I found the texture a little odd and not as elegant tasting (if that makes sense) as I would have liked. Perhaps this could be cured by grinding the nuts finer. I also prefer fresh fruit instead of preserves since I find preserves too sweet. I'm not sure I want to go through the trouble of making this again but other people really enjoyed it so I might.
Excellent cake to impress others. Anybody could make this cake with outstanding results - however I needed at least another hour of time to have the cake turn out like the photo. The effort is definitely worth the results. Cake doesn't rise as high and the frosting isn't as impressive in hot humid weather.
I made this for a party and it was a huge sucess. Used crushed almonds instead - very good. Also had trouble getting it out of the pan intact even though well greased. Luckily frosting is forgiving:)
This cake turned out great!! I used powdered sugar instead of white in the icing I know it changes the texture but I don't like tasting the grains in frosting. I did everything else as written. everyone loved it! It definately was a lot of work but I did allow my 3 year old son to help which doubles the work at least. Anyways well worth the effort especially when you have a husband who loves it as much as mine does.
Very good cake with a beautiful presentation. I like that the walnuts are ground rather than just chopped.
This cake is truly fantastic. I even make the raspberry jam from scratch because most store-bought jams are too sweet and not "fruity" enough for me. Women: this cake will yield marriage proposals!!
Awesome cake! We made it with almonds and fresh raspberries and it was outstanding. I love using cream instead of butter.
Tasted SO good. Even my cake hating boyfriend loved this. However I found the cake almost impossible to cut into 4 layers without breaking. Good thing the iceing was forgiving! Looked great topped with fresh raspberrys.
