Informal Inversion in Cake

My interest in Dobos Torte originates with Lindsey Remolif Shere's recipe in Chez Panisse Desserts, which explains that the "cake can be baked on baking sheets or on the bottoms of 8-inch layer cake pans." How could I not be titillated and hooked by a recipe that directs me to invert cake pans and liberally butter their bottoms?!

Shere writes, "The Dobos Torte is a handsome, rather formal cake made of seven thin layers of vanilla sponge cake iced with chocolate-hazelnut butter cream. The top layer is characteristically finished with a thin later of caramel marked into the cake's sixteen servings--often the wedges of caramel are lifted and tilted to produce a fan-like effect."

My informal first go at Dobos Torte consisted of five measly layers (internets [sic] research encouragingly indicates there's no clear seven-layer standard) and was uncharacteristically topped with icing. I baked after a long bike ride, and the caramel top would have either pushed dinner to an uncomfortably late hour or prevented the cake from being available for the evening's dessert.

Shere's recipe is sparse. Too sparse. For instance, unfamiliar with Dobos Torte, I had difficulty imagining what she has in mind regarding this "fan-like effect." I didn't understand that the layers would be propped up by something (butter cream or, now that I get it, perhaps hazelnuts). Now that I think of it, there may be info to this effect in the section about assembling the cake-- a bit I didn't read carefully having already decided that there'd be no caramel this time around. I was, btw, happy with the top of my cake which looked rather like a pond during a storm. Without clearer directions from Shere, I ended up with uneven layers. Or maybe it was just my lack of common sense.



A highlight: Kenneth, seeing the layers on the cooling rack, exclaimed devilishly, "You made pitas!!"

Should I continue to work on my Dobos Torte or just roll forward with Shere's amazing hazelnut chocolate butter cream recipe in my cake arsenal? Not sure. The night I made the cake, I was convinced it was a disaster. The night we ate the last pieces, I was rather fond of Dobos Torte. Kenneth and I agree that the 1:1.2 ratio of cake to icing is delightful. If I do work on formalizing my Dobos, I might use a jellyroll pan to help ensure the uniformity of all layers. This, though, would result in a rectangular cake with no potential "fan-like effect" and would abandon the notion of inverted baking which I initially found so scintillating.