[Editor's note: When we heard several weeks ago that Hungary's National Trade Guild of Hungarian Confectioner Industrialists had published a recipe for a 2008 "national cake," we gave Chew.hu co-editor (and baker extraordinaire) Carolyn Bánfalvi the task of trying to actually make the thing. Her report follows.]

Normally the amount of steps and components involved in this recipe would be an immediate turn-off. I would have stopped reading as soon as I saw the lengthy list of ingredients, which include gelatin, marzipan and "bitter" marzipan - all things that I don't keep around the house. And since my neighborhood grocery store is terrible, a recipe this long requires going to several different shops. But partially in honor of Hungary's birthday - and partially to see what the fuss was all about - I persevered, and baked this Szatmári szilva torta. I went to two grocery stores and a Számos Marcipan shop, I cracked open a bottle of házi szilva pálinka that I had stashed away, and another jar of homemade plum jam, and set aside half a day to bake this cake.

So how did it taste? It tasted like the kind of cake you'd get at a fancy cukrászda. It was very rich and sweet, and very impressive-looking for a home-made cake. But there was just too much going on in this recipe, and I wasn't crazy about the prune and chocolate combination. And it was a mystery to me why it featured such a huge amount of dried plums and plum lekvár (jam) rather than fresh plums, which are in season.

But the biggest mystery to me is why such a time-consuming and expensive cake to make was chosen to be the birthday cake of Hungary. I understand that Hungary has a long tradition of these kinds of fancy tortes, and that this will probably bring some good PR for the National Trade Guild of Hungarian Confectioner Industrialists. It may even make some people curious enough to go try a piece of it at a cukrászda (Click here for a current list of where to get a ready-baked version.) But why not choose a cake that people will actually want to make? I can't see many people, even avid bakers, getting excited about spending half a day in the kitchen in the August heat, baking a complicated prune cake. How about something simple like a seasonal plum or apricot cake? (The second and third-place "runner ups" were a much more manageable sounding apricot Pálinka cake and wine cream cake.)

And then there's the cost. According to the shelf prices at my local Spar supermarket, just the ingredients cost a somewhat astounding Ft 4,285 (€18.20). The recipe says one cake is meant to make 16 slices, but I would say that the cake makes about ten decent sized pieces, which puts each piece at Ft 428. Maybe Americans have the right idea by eating apple pie on America's birthday, which requires little more than apples, butter, flour and sugar. But maybe I'm wrong, and this cake will end up becoming a part of the Hungarian cukrászda repertoire. Or maybe others will also be crazy enough to make it at home.

Keeping in mind that the recipe was written by and for professional pastry chefs, it really was not as difficult as its length makes it seem. But it does require a staggering amount of ingredients, and time. I attempted to follow the recipe as closely as possible, although I did simplify a few things. While I wasn't crazy about how the cake tasted, the recipe turned out beautifully, so I offer some details of how I did it:

• The recipe doesn't specify how much boiling water to use for the plums, I used one cup.
• Only professional pastry chefs weigh their eggs! 120 grams of whole eggs is three eggs, 100 grams of egg yolks is six eggs, and 50 grams of egg yolks is three eggs.
• The recipe didn't say to, but I buttered the pans very well.
• Don't be surprised by how thin the batter in the cake pans looks.
• I did not know the difference between regular marzipan and "bitter" marzipan. The lady at the marzipan shop told me there is no difference, so I used natúr marcipan.
• Rather than cocoa paste I used melted Katica baking chocolate.
• Rather than using rum, I used sütő szeszesital (baking spirit, produced by Zwack Unicum).
• I skipped the blender step for both the marzipan and the chocolate creams. They were smooth enough without it.
• I refrigerated both cream mixtures for several hours, so they were firm and I didn't need to use the hoop like the recipe recommended.
• If I were doing it again, I'd skip spreading the plum jam and the ground walnuts on each layer.
• I skipped the gelatin step.

If I were to deconstruct this recipe and do it over again, I would drastically simplify it, and perhaps turn it into two separate recipes. For the piskóta, I would replace the dried plums with fresh ones and bake it as one big cake, rather than three thin layers. I would brush the pálinka syrup on top, and spread it with slightly sweetened fresh whipped cream. And if I wanted to do something fancier, I would make a plain piskóta, slice it into two layers, spread one with the marzipan cream and the other with the chocolate cream, and stack them. On second thought, maybe I'll just move on to a different recipe. Anyway, boldog szülinapot Hungary!