Gambinos, haydels, and probably every bakery in the city offers their take on the filled and stacked layered cake, with the most popular option being the halfandhalf, a doberge with a lemonchocolate split personalityliterally, a lemonfilledandiced cake on one side and a chocolatefilledandiced cake. Each of adrian simpsons 23 flavors of new orleans ice cream co. I mentioned on an earlier post about doberge cake my personal favorite this 9 layer cake is an new orleans favorite. Very often the cakes are made with half chocolate pudding and half lemon pudding. Doberge cake is a layered dessert originating in new orleans, louisiana, adapted by local baker beulah ledner from the hungarian dobos torte.
A year after katrina, a lot of people on the devastated gulf coast are slowly rebuilding cherished collections of handwritten recipe cards, dogeared cookbooks and yellowed newspaper clippings that. Hurricane katrinas delicious aftermath in new orleans. In her essay, doberge cake after katrina, sins longingly reminisces about such family classics as cheesy birthday chicken and, of course, light, fluffy, and moist doberge cake 45. The bakery is planning a purple and gold version of the cake if the lsu tigers. The 1987 privately published lets bake with beulah ledner cookbook by maxine wolchansky, ledners daughter, explains how the doberge queen of new orleans adapted the famous hungarian dobos torta to the local climate and gave it a frenchsounding name, doberge pronounced doughbash. Rose, louisiana, opened a bakery in new orleans in 1933. To my knowledge, she was the first one to make doberge cakes popular.
Still popular in the area, the cake is made of multiple thin layers of cake alternating with dessert pudding. Ledner retired in 1981 at the age of 87 and died at age 93, leaving a legacy that lives on in her recipes bought by gambinos for this popular cake that can be found and all over new orleans. Doberge pronounced dohbash cake is the birthday cake of new orleans. So let me introduce you to joe gambinos doberge cake history of the cake beulah levy ledner, born into a jewish family in st. Sins begins by telling us food is a way of life in new orleans. What she means by this is food is a large part of the. Inspired to action after failures to recreate her motherinlaws buttery, chocolate custardfilled doberge cake, cyrex sins began compiling over recipes from family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and favorite new orleans restaurants. If you want lsuthemed snacks for a national championship. Doberge cake by judy walker, the timespicayune february 25, 2009, 4. Sins goes into detail about the specific foods and memories of her hometown, but she is ultimately writing about the same hunger we all feel when.
The loss of her beloved handwritten recipe collection passed from family and friends. A locals guide to new orleans, louisiana washington post. Lets bake with beulah ledner filled with new orleans. Her most recent book is quiches, kugels and couscous. Since almost no one bakes king cake at home, bakers say a solid annual trade has helped keep them going after katrina. The dobos torte on which the doberge cake is based used to be very popular in jewish communities around the country and especially in new york city in the early twentieth century, said joan nathan, jewish cookbook author. It opened after hurricane katrina as the citys hispanic population boomed, thanks to those who came to help rebuild the city after the floodwaters receded. She remembers the dobos torte as a sevenlayer, white cake with chocolate. King cakes abound in new orleans the new york times.
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