The cake eaten by Beulah Ledner’s surviving son, now 91, was close to his mom’s, but still not it. (Albert Ledner)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Beranbaum said that there is something \u201cmagical\u201d about skinny, multi-layered cake: \u201cThink of it,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you just have two layers, you don\u2019t get as much butter cream. This way, you get almost as much butter cream aSome of the bakeries in New Orleans use a fondant over the thin layer of butter cream frosting.<\/p>\n
Beranbaum said fondant is generally used to keep things fresh so that you have time to decorate them. It is not exactly the ingredient of choice when there are options.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people don\u2019t want to eat fondant,\u201d she said, \u201cbut of course in New Orleans people have a much bigger sweet tooth and so I can see why they wouldn\u2019t have any objection to it, but that\u2019s not my way of using fondant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some bakeries use poured fudge instead of fondant to coat the cake; Beranbaum said that fudge is also very sweet.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee my goal is to make things not cloyingly sweet,\u201d she said. \u201c[In the South] they still go for their pralines and sugary things so I think that wouldn\u2019t be the way I would do it, but there\u2019s a market for it, especially in New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Ledner\u2019s version of the cake used custard instead of\u00a0buttercream\u00a0frosting between the layers, she\u00a0also made butter cake rather than sponge cake.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis produced a torte with subtle richness and lighter quality,\u201d Wolchansky wrote in her cookbook.<\/p>\n
The cake stayed cool because it required refrigeration, especially in the semi-tropical clime of the Big Easy. \u201cShe felt like it was great for New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beulah Ledner created the French-sounding name Doberge (pronounced either Do-bage or Do-berge by New Orleanians), because she thought the name should reflect regional traditions,\u00a0her daughter wrote.<\/p>\n
A love for the cake requires a sweet tooth that even some of Ledner\u2019s descendants don\u2019t possess.<\/p>\n
Albert Ledner, well known for his residential and commercial architecture around New Orleans and the country, says he likes it, but it is a bit too sweet and rich for him.<\/p>\n
Catherine Ledner, a photographer based in Los Angeles, said that although the cake is supposed to be lighter than dobos torte (pronounced do-bosh), it is still pretty rich. \u201cI\u2019m really not into icing and there\u2019s a lot of icing on that cake,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Still, not too many people in New Orleans will dispute the popularity of Doberge cake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the importance of it is self-evident because \u2026 90 percent of bakeries in New Orleans do their own version, \u201c Albert Ledner said.<\/p>\n
No bakery in New Orleans makes the Doberge cake exactly the way his mother made it, Albert Ledner says.\u00a0\u00a0That is because the baking process is so labor-intensive that commercial bakeries today cannot make it the way she did and still recoup their money.\u00a0\u00a0His mother never made much money on Doberge, Albert Ledner said. She did it on the basis of \u2018this is the way it should be done.’<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, bakers in New Orleans tend to think they are the best at making Doberge.<\/p>\n
That is not to say that individuals cannot make the cake the right way. Last year, when Albert Ledner turned 90, a neighbor and caterer made a Doberge cake, which he described as \u201cvery close and very good.\u201d
So the pop-up bakery and supplier of desserts to restaurants also uses their own spin on the custard. Theirs is actually a pudding with\u00a0more updated flavors such a cream cheese, cherry and banana. Traditional flavors for doberge have always been chocolate, lemon and then caramel, Mary said.<\/p>\n
Scelfo said a lot of bakeries and grocery stores in New Orleans try to emulate Gambino\u2019s Bakery\u2019s doberge cake but it\u2019s a lost cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll take one layer and slice it and we literally bake each layer individually \u2026 because you don\u2019t want your custard to be absorbed within the layer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Even though she had sold her recipe to Gambino\u2019s. in 1946, Beulah Ledner opted to go back into the bakery business as a competitor to Gambino\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Scelfo recalls having visited Ledner in her bakery, which she opened in Metairie. She was charming, but tough, he recalled: \u201cYou did it right or you just didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ingredients were hard to come by during World War II and so Albert Ledner said his parents had to close the bakery during the war. Afterwards, Gambino\u2019s approached the couple with an offer to buy the name and the recipe. They decided it was best to sell it, but after a year of idleness, Ledner\u00a0reopened a new bakery under a new name in what was then the nascent Metairie area.<\/p>\n
Jean-Luc Albin, owner of Maurice French Pastries in Metairie, said his bakery follows Beulah Ledner\u2019s original recipe.\u00a0\u00a0The cakes appeal to people who remember them from Beulah Ledner\u2019s time, but also are big on major holidays like Thanksgiving, Father\u2019s Day and birthdays.<\/p>\n
Not to miss out on Mardi Gras, he started offering a petifore version of Doberge cake as well.<\/p>\n
Albin bought the bakery 26 years ago from Maurice Ravet, who\u00a0purchased the bakery and Doberge cake recipe directly from Beulah Ledner in the early 1980s, when she retired at age 87 after 50 years in baking and catering.<\/p>\n
Everyone knew that Beulah Ledner was Jewish, Catherine\u00a0Ledner said.\u00a0She went to synagogue. She was a member of the Jewish Community Center in New Orleans. But her Doberge cake is more of a New Orleans thing than a Jewish thing, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the birthday cake of New Orleans,\u201d she concluded. \u201cWe love to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"doberge_cake_FW\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/doberge_cake_FW.jpg\")