Sacher torte

All is quiet here now. Just about to open. I just got here. Left early yesterday. Markets sold out. Have been extremely busy in the store. Yesterday, first time in thirty four years. They were waiting outside, on a day that wasn't Fat Tuesday or the day before Thanksgiving. This is a late July Saturday. Should be kinda quiet. I also realize, the weather was perfect. Matt took some pictures, tomorrow I'm gonna start adding pictures to this. Needless to say our customer count is thru the roof, both Friday and Saturday. Today is the big bike race in Evanston, generally draws a pretty good crowd.

Been goin' thru a lot of macaroons lately. Had two orders for them yesterday, one on Friday. When people order them, it's not three and four. It's forty and fifty. We had thirty go out with a wedding cake yesterday. The Frenchies claim they will be the next craze. I guess there is a string of French macaroon shops open in Japan, that has opened in New York. In the new Whole Foods concept store, they are offering macaroons from many different bakeries. I've heard they are nothing special. One of our bakers was there and he asked about them. The counter person said "they taste like an Oreo". Don't know what that means.

We've redone our Sacher torte, here in the last few weeks. Been very well accepted. I save all monthly trade publications. I have things going back to the late fifties. I attended a trade show/convention years ago. The Gottenbusch family from Servatti Pastry Shop in Cinncinati demonstarted their version of Sacher torte. Sacher torte has loads of folklore. I'm not sure what I believe. I've been to the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, long ago. I remember it being a little hotel and a big bakery. Seems the tortes were available in several sizes, each in it's own wooden box. One thing for sure, ours is better than theirs. The "original" is kinda dense and bready. I thought it lacked chocolate flavour. We start with our devil's food cake and add almond products to it. We use our homemade raspberry jam between the layers with housemade ganache. We coat it with a glace made from chocolate and creme. Really, really delicious. And moist, wow. Back to the Servatti demo, I remembered that cake, but couldn't find the info from the demo, I knew I had it. After searching for weeks, viola. We've had it in the store non-stop ever since. This week, I'm gonna try making individual pieces. Livin' by the thought that, nothin' is new, just the old things comin' back around.

Well gotta close this. I gotta lay a plan for this week, I got an old lady up in Flint, Michigan looking for me.