Tortina Original

Tortina Original. A wafer cake with hazelnut cream under milk chocolate.

Tortina Original is a individually wrapped wafer and hazelnut cream cake by Loacker, coated in milk chocolate. No chocolate bar, no iced biscuit, no liqueur-filled praline.

Tortina Original is a milk chocolate delicacy by Loacker, in which two crispy wafer layers enclose a hazelnut cream. Imagine a bar in Bolzano in the late morning. The espresso is on the counter, next to it lies a small round package with golden lettering. Open it, and you first smell caramel and warm milk, then the roasted nut. This cake is made for exactly this moment, not for a big hunger.

Three layers that come together in one bite

The cake combines a thin chocolate coating, two dry wafer layers and a soft hazelnut cream into a bite with three textures. More than half of the weight, namely 54 percent, is the cream. The wafer remains in the background and provides above all the crunch.

The milk chocolate contains at least 38 percent cocoa, significantly more than the 25 percent required for milk chocolate. Loacker enriches it with fine cocoa from Ecuador, a bean with a slightly spicy, nutty note. In the mouth, this reveals itself as a caramel aroma and a subtle roastiness before the cream takes over.

The cream itself contains 27 percent hazelnuts and tastes distinctly of nuts, hardly of cocoa. A trace of barley malt brings a bready depth, rounded off by Bourbon vanilla. However, anyone expecting a tart, cocoa-focused chocolate will find the Original too sweet. Then the dark sister is the better choice.

The temperature noticeably changes the taste. At around 20 degrees, the coating breaks cleanly, and the cream only melts on the tongue. If the cake is held in a warm hand, the chocolate and filling blur into a single sweet mass.

From the espresso counter to the dessert plate

The Tortina Original works best next to a short, strong coffee, which answers its sweetness with roasted bitterness. An Italian espresso from a dark roast like the Bar Crema is a good partner for this. Milk coffee and cappuccino, on the other hand, enhance the milk note and make the whole thing rather soft.

For a round after dinner, cut two cakes into quarters with a warm knife. This creates eight small pieces for a petit four plate, which can be picked up without crumbs. Next to it fit hazelnut macaroons like the Brutti ma Buoni and a few grapes.

The cake also works as a quick dessert. Roughly chopped over an affogato, so a scoop of vanilla ice cream poured over with hot espresso, the wafer remains surprisingly crispy for a long time. To sweet wine or liqueur, on the other hand, it hardly fits, the cream is too mild for that.

In the afternoon, it also works with tea, provided the tea has strength. A malty Assam or an Earl Grey with bergamot hold up against milk chocolate and nuts. Fine green or white teas, on the other hand, get lost next to the cake.

Our tip: Store the Tortinas at 16 to 18 degrees. In the refrigerator, the chocolate fogs up when taken out, and the wafer draws moisture. For hot summer days without a cool storage room, the cake is therefore only limited suitable.

A patisserie from the Ritten, baked in East Tyrol

The Loacker family has been baking wafers since 1925 and includes the Tortina in its line of fine patisserie. The name is Italian and simply means little cake. The house was founded by the confectioner Alfons Loacker, today it is run by the third generation.

The recipe for the wafer layer goes back to the founder. His son Armin refined it, but preserved it at its core, and this layer is also in the Tortina today. The cake is thus a younger form of a very old basic recipe.

The main seat is in Unterinn on the Ritten, a high plateau above Bolzano. Loacker operates a second plant in Heinfels in East Tyrol, also at around a thousand meters above sea level. As the country of origin, the product data sheet of the Tortina lists Austria, so it is baked in East Tyrol.

The hazelnuts come exclusively from Italy. Loacker grows a part on two of its own estates in Tuscany and buys the rest from farmers in five other regions. The nuts are roasted in the Alps, shortly before they go into the cream. This is important, because roasted and ground hazelnuts lose their aroma much faster than whole ones.

A word about the wafer: The layer is baked between hot plates in a few minutes and contains hardly any water afterwards. That is why it is so light and crumbly. The chocolate coating protects this dryness, an open wafer layer would quickly become soft in the air.

For the cocoa, Loacker maintains its own cultivation program with cocoa farmers in Ecuador. Ecuador is considered the origin of Nacional cocoa, a fine cocoa line with floral and nutty aromas. The house buys the vanilla as a whole pod, it is not replaced by aroma. Loacker does not use added aromas, colorings, or preservatives in the Tortina.

A small format with a firm place

What distinguishes the Tortina from an ordinary chocolate bar is its structure like a real cake with a base, filling, and lid. Added to that is the size. 21 grams is a portion that does not weigh down after a meal and does not satisfy before lunch.

Loacker now bakes the Tortina in several variants, including with white chocolate, as Triple Chocolate, and with caramel. The Original is the starting point of this range and the most balanced version. Anyone who tries the Tortina for the first time should start with it.

As a gift, a handful of cakes is suitable for hosts who make coffee after dinner. In the office, a small tin of them belongs in the meeting room. Anyone who wants to offer light and dark side by side should add the Tortina Dark, for the classic wafer reach for the Classic Napolitaner.

A little cake that takes exactly one espresso length and afterwards demands more hazelnut than you intended.