Chocolate Walnut Skyscraper Torte

This is what I have dubbed the Chocolate Walnut Skyscraper Torte.

First of all, let me just say that I made this tower of lusciousness for my aunt's birthday. Happy Birthday Aunt Lisa! This is based on a recipe that my grandmother used to make for Christmas and birthdays. It's pretty simple really: Devil's Food Cake, Chocolate Frosting, Chopped Walnuts. My grandmother even used Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake Mixes, according to my dad. I made them from scratch, but hey, you do what works for you.

My grandmother used to make this in a 13 x 9" pan or even a jelly roll pan. She ended up with something similar to frosted brownies sprinkled with walnuts.

What I do with my grandmother's delicious recipes is tweak them. I make small changes that kick things up a notch. In this case, instead of making it one layer, I opted for 6.

Now, the secret to my success is the big cake leveler put out by Wilton and available at most of your local craft stores. I purchased mine at AC Moore with a 40% off coupon and paid less than $15 bucks. And let me tell you, I am in love! There are all kinds of high flying cake possibilities when you have the ability to torte. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll start with the hardware. A cake leveler reminds me of one of those saws that lumberjacks use to saw a log...you know, one on each end sawing through the middle. Except that instead of having a vertical blade, a cake leveler has a horizontal blade. There are adjustable feet so that you can position the blade at just the right spot. Then you saw through your cake, and voila, where there was one, now there is two. And this is what is known as torting a cake.

So, I baked a double recipe of Devil's Food Cake in 3 round 9" pans. Once cooled, I torted each layer so that I had 6 layers of about 1" thick. I made a big batch of chocolate butter cream frosting (you could probably use the canned stuff just as well...I would buy 3-4 so you have enough). And I gave my husband the job of beating the heck out of the walnuts with the meat tenderizing hammer. What can I say...my food chopper died. And it's a great stress reliever.

I then began to build the tower of lusciousness. Pretty simple process. Cake, frosting, nuts. Cake, frosting, nuts. Repeat until you reach the last layer of cake.

This is what you have at this point. 6 layers of cake with chocolate frosting oozing from between them. It's okay to drool...just wipe your chin when you're done.

After you've reached this point, you need to frost this behemoth with even more chocolate frosting. You could be super precise if you wanted to decorate it with a shell border or something like that. If you were really, really dedicated, I bet you could basket weave this sucker. That was not on my agenda today however. I did a decorative whirl. Easy, and lots of extra frosting (like there's not enough between the layers). When you've finished frosting the sides and top, sprinkle some more walnuts on top for a finishing touch.

This is what you get. A huge, gigantic, mouth-watering stack of chocolate decadence.

And this is what a slice of sin on a plate looks like. And guess what, it tastes even better than it looks. But don't feel bad if you can't eat a whole piece in one sitting, I sure couldn't! Enjoy with a very large, very cold glass of milk and you will be happy. According to my husband, this is the cure for a really crumby day at work.