Chocolate Doberge Cake

In the early 1920s, Beulah Ledner adapted the Hungarian Dobos torte for New Orleans — swapping buttercream for a lighter custard filling, coating it in buttercream and fondant — and invented the doberge cake that became the city’s birthday tradition. When Joe Gambino bought her bakery and recipe in 1946, he made one promise: bake each layer separately, from scratch, exactly as Ledner intended. Gambino’s is the only bakery in New Orleans that still does it that way. The chocolate doberge stacks six layers of dark cake with housemade chocolate custard between each one, finished in chocolate buttercream and poured chocolate fondant.