By Christine Berl
You need only read one or two recipes in this book to know it's not meant for novices. The yield on most of the cake and torte recipes is six to eight - whole ones, not wedges - while those meant to be cut into slices will usually fill two 45cm x 65cm sheet pans.
Still, anyone with basic maths can scale down the recipes by dividing the weight of ingredients by six or eight to make just one cake or torte (a hint: this is easier to do with metric than it is with avoirdupois).
Austria is famous for its desserts, which are served everywhere, from comfy, independent kaffeehauser to extrava-gant and somewhat intimidating pastry shops, such as the famous Demel.
Author Christine Berl was taught to make these classic desserts by her mother, who worked as a pastry chef in Vienna. They include the obvious: sachertorte, linzertorte (two versions: brown and white), strudel, gugelhupf and kipferl, as well as lesser-known pastries, such as marillentorte (made with apricots), nusstorte mit schokolade (chocolate nut torte), kirschenkuchen (fresh cherry cake), biskuitroulade (jelly roll), ribiselschnitten (currant slices), dattelbuesserln (date kisses) and zwetschkenfleck mit streusel (plum cake with crumb topping).