In a day when hotels are often outdoing each other in the quest for the most expensive cocktail or most luxurious penthouse suite, sometimes it’s worth returning to the simpler things in life… like chocolate cake. The Ritz-Carlton has just announced such a cake as the brand’s first “signature dessert.”
The mission of Corporate Chef Rainer Zinngrebe was to take a few classical, yet commonly found ingredients to create a dish that would be distinctly “Ritz-Carlton.”
Of course, there were some requirements—the cake had to contain Grand Marnier, a liquor named by Caesar Ritz for his friend Louis-Alexandre Manier La Postelle, who later gave Ritz the money to start his first ever hotel, in Paris.
The result? Dozens of pastry chefs at Ritz hotels worldwide created recipes; 20 were named as finalists. These recipes were tasted, dissected, and judged by grand jury over criteria that ranked, among other things, the cake’s ability to stay fresh for up to eight days and to be transported easily, the winner was declared—a layered confection boasting three varieties of chocolate, bitter caramel and orange ganache. The recipe itself is a product of the Ritz-Carlton Toronto’s pastry chef, Yusuke Aoke, who paired dark Valrhona, ilk Majari and Jivara chocolates with two stripes of bitter caramel and two of orange ganache, a mixture made from candied fruit and Grand Marnier.
Today, you can buy the cake in Ritz-Carlton hotels for between $40 and $45. It comes in a signature black box with the words “The Cake” written on the side and tied with a Ritz-Carlton bow. The brand also plans to sell the cake online soon.
