Maryland Smith Island Torte

Jennifer was baking dobos torte, so I stopped by. My job wasn’t to help or to coach. It was to egg on.

“Why not bake two?” I urged, pulling out surplus pans. “Why not bake three?” We did. It took all day, and our cakes came out beautiful – layers of egg-light cake and chocolate-heavy buttercream crowned with crackling caramel. An homage to Hungarian pastry genius Jozsef C. Dobos, who reputedly engineered the well-insulated cake for long shelf life.