Austrian Desserts: Over 400 Cakes, Pastries, Strudels, Tortes, and Candies
448
Austrian Desserts: Over 400 Cakes, Pastries, Strudels, Tortes, and Candies
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Overview
- Iced temptations for sultry summer days
- Fresh berry roasts and pies
- Crème brulées with an Austrian twist
- A variety of flaked baumkuchen (layer cake)
- Chocolates and candied confections
- And so much more!
Sprinkled between these delicious recipes are tips and tricks from a kitchen connoisseur, suggestions for health-conscious substitutions, and notes on the traditional origins of numerous Austrian dishes.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781628738056 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 448 |
| File size: | 24 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Basics of the Sweet Austrian Kitchen
Basic Doughs, Batters, and Glazes
BASIC DOUGH
The word "dough" comes from kneading, which says the most important thing about its creation. The basic ingredient is always a grain that has been ground and mixed with liquid, fat, eggs, nuts, sugar, and flavoring and finally baked. Most doughs are also suitable for freezing.
As the Pastry Turns
The invention of puff pastry is the stuff of legends. It is entirely possible that it was Viennese bakers who first got the idea to roll out butter on water-based dough to make it airier. Presumably this technique was brought north by Viennese journeymen and Danish pastry developed from leavened flaky dough in Denmark. It is not a coincidence that the otherwise thoroughly patriotic French call pastries made of this dough '"Viennoiserie" even today. Meanwhile in France, the expression "millefeuille," which means "1,000 leaves," was invented for puff pastry or flaky pastry. That is admittedly one of the many little exaggerations that appear so often in the history of Grande Cuisine. In truth, a properly made puff pastry has more than 144 layers — which is still enough for it to be very flaky due to the trapped air and the water content. The important process of rolling out and folding the dough many times is known to pastry chefs as "turning." Traditionally, you need four turns for the puff pastry to turn out perfect.
Basic Dough for Tarts
Cream the butter with the granulated sugar. Add the lemon zest and salt and then the eggs. Incorporate the flour and cool the dough for 1 hour in the refrigerator, covered. Preheat the oven to 375 °F (190°C). On a floured work surface, roll the dough out to the proper size and line a buttered springform with it. Cover with parchment paper and dried lentils or peas. Bake for 12 — 15 minutes. After baking, remove the parchment paper and lentils or peas and use the tart base as you wish.
Bake Time: 12 — 15 minutes
Bake Temperature: 375 °F (190 °C)
Ingredients for 2 tarts (10 in (26 cm) diameter)
2 sticks plus 3 tbsp (270 g) Butter, room temperature
PUFF PASTRY
For the starter dough, first knead flour with butter, salt, rum or vinegar, water, and egg yolks to an elastic dough. Roll into a ball, cut in half, and let rest for about 30 minutes.
For the butter brick, knead the butter with the flour until smooth and form a brick. Roll out the starter on a floured work surface, lay the butter brick on top, and fold the dough over. From the center, carefully roll out the dough in all directions with a rolling pin without rolling it thinner than ½ inch (10mm). Then come the four turns.
First turn: Fold the dough over in thirds (creating 3 layers) and roll out again.
Second turn: Fold the dough over in quarters (creating 4 layers), cover the dough, and let it rest for about 30 minutes.
Third and fourth turns: Roll out the dough again and repeat the first and second turns. Then the dough will have a total of 144 layers (3x4x3x4). Let the dough rest in the refrigerator. It is best to wait until the next day to work with it further.
Ingredients for the starter
4 cups (500 g) Flour
DANISH PASTRY
For the butter brick, it is best to grate the cold butter into shavings with a coarse plane or cut into pieces. Mix in the flour and form a brick. Let it sit in a cold place (for several hours if possible).
To make the starter dough, mix yeast into the cold milk and then knead with the remaining ingredients to form a smooth dough. Roll into a ball with the heels of your hands. Cut in half, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest for 10 minutes in the refrigerator. As with the puff pastry (see p. 11), fold in the butter with a simple, a double, and another simple turn. Use dough as you please. Brown Danish pastry at 430 °F (220 °C) and finish baking at 350 °F (180 °C).
Ingredients For the Butter Brick
3 sticks (350 g) Butter
Tip: Make sure that Danish pastry dough, which also happens to be called leavened puff pastry, is always kept very cool while working.
To be sure your yeast dough rises properly ...
... it is advised that you always follow these rules:
• Always use room temperature ingredients.
• Avoid capturing air inside the dough as you knead it.
• Make sure that it is above 68 °F (20 °C) in your work room.
• Use butter with the lowest possible salt content.
• Use only fresh yeast and make sure that it has not dried out.
• For the preparation of yeast dough, use only pure wheat flour.
• Always let your starter and yeast dough rise in the warmest spot in your work room.
LEAVENED DOUGH
Mix smooth and coarse flour together. Crumble the yeast in a second bowl and mix with lukewarm milk. Mix in half the flour, dust the top with flour, and cover the starter dough with a towel (the towel should not touch the dough). Let rise in a warm spot for about 30 minutes. Beat in the salt, eggs, sugar, remaining flour, liquid butter, and oil with a cooking spoon until the dough separates from the side of the bowl. Cover and let rise another 20 minutes in a warm spot. Continue according to the recipe, but always bake in a closed oven from 430 °F down to 350 °F (220°C to 180 °C).
Ingredients
3 cups (375 g) Flour
BRIOCHE DOUGH
Warm the milk, mix in the yeast, mix in some of the flour to create a starter, and let rise in a warm spot until the volume has doubled. Mix the rest of the ingredients into the risen starter and beat the dough until bubbles form. Cover the bowl with a towel (the towel should not touch the dough) and let rise again in a warm spot. Repeat this process two more times. Finally, let the dough sit in a cold place for 1 hour and then fill the appropriate pan or make braids or buns according to the recipe. Bake for about 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 430 °F (220 °C ).
Bake Time: 20 minutes
Bake Temperature: 430 °F (220 °C )
Ingredients
6 tbsp Milk
What is Brie Doing in Brioche?
Culinary historians know a few things about the word "brioche." For example, that this leavened bread, originally made without a starter, appeared for the first time in 1404 in a recipe manuscript. Alexandre Dumas, creator of the Three Musketeers and author of a large culinary dictionary, claimed that brioche was so called because in classic brioche, some brie used to be mixed into the dough. This theory is considered to have been disproven, because brioche can be traced back to the Norman root broyer/brier, which means nothing other than pounded/combined. So, no cheese in breakfast brioche. And cross my heart: marmalade goes much better. (See recipe on page 13.)
Pãte Brisee (Linzer Dough)
Cut the butter into small pieces and let soften to room temperature. Sift the flour into a bowl, add confectioner's sugar, salt, vanilla sugar, lemon zest, and egg yolks, and knead with fingertips. Quickly knead in the butter (don't take too long!), form a ball, and let sit for an hour in a cool place. Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C). Roll the dough out thin and lay it on a baking pan or in the tart pan, stipple with a fork (poke several holes), and bake until golden brown. Let cool and then continue as desired.
Bake Time: about 8 minutes
Bake Temperature: 350 °F (180 °C)
Ingredients for 2 tortes (10in (26 cm) diameter) or 1 cake
One, Two, Three from Linz
Long before the invention of the Linzer Torte, the "pretty Linzers" were already known as outstanding bakers. In many old cookbooks, Linzer dough is named after them, even though in reality it is nothing but a classic pâte brisée. Because the sugar, butter, and flour are used in a ratio of 1:2:3, this dough was sometimes called a one-two-three dough in Austrian vernacular.
Strudel Dough
Sift the flour onto a work surface, make an indent in the middle, and add in the oil and salt. Add the water little by little and knead all the ingredients to a smooth dough that does not stick to your hands. Place the dough in a bowl and spread oil on top so that a skin will not form. Cover with a damp towel that does not touch the dough and let rest at room temperature for half an hour. Then use as you please.
Use: as apple, pear, or apricot strudel, or as decoration, such as strudel leaves
Ingredients for 10 Servings
10 Golden Rules for Successful Strudel Dough
Many housewives hesitate to make strudel dough themselves and instead reach for simpler premade products. Those who can say that they made their strudel themselves will get even more attention from guests. It is not as complicated as it looks by far. If you follow these "golden housewife rules" you need have no worries about the quality of your strudel:
1. Practice makes perfect. The second strudel dough will be better than the first. By the tenth, you will have the routine down. And by number twenty, at the latest, strudel will be as easy as the proverbial pie.
2. Make sure that the water is tempered well. Too hot is better than too cold.
3. Allow the dough an adequate rest before using it. Let it rest in a slightly warmed container that holds warmth well. Strudel dough does not like being cooled.
4. The strudel dough should always rest in a container covered with a towel or plate.
5. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin as evenly as possible and lay it on a sufficiently floured, warmed(!) cloth.
6. Remove all rings before working on this dough, because they can easily tear the dough during kneading.
7. Reach between the dough and the cloth with both hands. Make sure that the backs of your hands face up and are bent, and spread your fingers as much as possible.
8. As soon as the dough is on your two hands, you only need to move the dough back and forth in a steady rhythm, gently and without haste. The dough is elastic enough that it adjusts to this movement and gets thinner evenly without tearing.
9. As soon as the dough is as thin as newspaper (or, as they used to say, as translucent as a poppy petal), all bumps and thick edges must be cut off or pressed thin between your thumb and forefinger.
10. After adding the filling, move the dough only with the help of the cloth lying underneath. You only need to hold it tautly from the left and right and lift it slowly. Then the dough will practically roll itself together.
Butter Streusel
Mix the flour with room temperature butter, confectioner's sugar, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla sugar and roll the mixture into crumbs between your hands. Use as you please or line a baking sheet with parchment paper, spread out the streusel, and bake at 340 °F (170 °C) until golden brown. Spread on a fruit tart or fruit waffle.
Ingredients for the Covering of a Tart
Tip: If you spread some melted butter on the streusel before baking, it will get crispier and be a prettier color.
Bake Time: about 5 minutes
Bake Temperature: 340 °F (170 °C)
Palatschinken (Austrian Crêpe) Dough
Mix milk with eggs, granulated sugar, and salt. Mix in the flour last. Heat oil in a pan, pour in a thin layer of dough, and tilt the pan so that the dough can even out. Cook the palatschinken until golden brown, turning once.
Ingredients for 8 Palatschinken
Tip: The classic Viennese way to eat palatschinken is filled
with apricot marmalade. But they also taste excellent with fillings of various other marmalades, ground nuts, creamy quark, and ice cream, or garnished with chocolate sauce.
It All Depends on the Filling
The most important thing for pancakes is the consistency and fullness of the dough, but palatschinken, which originated in Romania and Hungary, are about delicateness. Palatschinken should be so fine and thin that the filling can shine and not be battered by dough that is too opulent or even soggy.
Quark Dough For Filled Dumplings
Cream the butter with the confectioner's sugar. Stir in the quark, then the eggs, and season with lemon zest, rum, and salt. Mix in the breadcrumbs and let set for 2 hours. Use as you please.
Ingredients for 15 x 20 Dumplings
Tip: This dough works very well for fruit, poppy, nut, or chocolate dumplings.
Quark from the Pot
Topfen is the Austrian name for the type of cheese that is called quark in Germany. "Topf" means "pot" and topfen is simply cream cheese that comes from the same pot as the sour milk that made it. The technique of curdling skimmed milk with fermented milk cultures and rennet and then separating the whey from the fresh cheese was known to Mongolian pastoral people. The technique is around 9,000 years old. The watery, low- fat topfen has been popular since then. It is indispensable in the sweet Austrian kitchen for making "sinful" creams and fillings as well as lower calorie doughs and batters that are easy to digest. Topfen is also rich in vitamins and micronutrients and provides three times as much protein as milk, making it more filling.
Precisely because of these advantages, topfen is a sensitive raw product and should be looked after appropriately, especially in dessert cooking. That is why you should always be aware of the following rules:
Make sure that topfen is always white to creamy yellow, tastes mildly sour, is not secreting whey, and is not exhibiting any effects of going bad, such as mold, discoloration, or similar. Bitter tones in the taste are a sign that it is going bad.
Topfen should always be stored in a cool place, protected from light. At room temperature it will go bad quicker, become sour, and have a change in taste.
Caution: Topfen is very susceptible to strange smells. Thus, it should be kept in a tightly sealed container and never stored near strongly aromatic ingredients and food.
The more sour cream that topfen contains, the softer, smoother, and more spreadable it will be, yet also the higher calorie it will be. There are similar cheeses of varying fat content available.
Choux Pastry
Bring water, butter, sugar, and salt to boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat as soon as the mixture begins to boil and stir in the sifted flour. Stir smooth with a cooking spoon. Place the pan back on the heat and stir until the dough separates from the pan. Remove from the heat again and now slowly mix in one egg after another (ideally with a hand mixer). The dough should absorb the eggs well and should not become greasy. Bake the choux pastry as directed in a preheated oven at 350 — 430 °F (180 — 220 °C) for 15 — 20 minutes.
Bake Time: 15 — 20 minutes (according to size)
Bake Temperature: about 350 — 430 °F (180 — 220 °C)
Ingredients For about 30 Profiteroles
1 Bring water, butter, sugar, and salt to boil.
2 Remove from heat and stir in the sifted flour. Sit smooth with a cooking spoon.
3 Place the saucepan back on the heat and stir until "burnt," until the dough separates from the pan. Remove from heat and stir in the eggs bit by bit.
4 Put the batter in a pastry bag with a star tip and squeeze out puffs.
5 Put the profiteroles in the oven.
6 Remove from the oven, let cool briefly, then remove from sheet.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Austrian Desserts"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Toni Mörwald and Christoph Wagner.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Basics of the Sweet Austrian Kitchen,
Basic Doughs, Batters, And Glazes,
Invitation to a Viennese Coffee Break,
Sweet Seductions Of Danish Pastry, Puff Pastry, And Pãte à Choux,
Baking Like the Pros,
Cakes, Tarts, Schnitten, And Strudel,
Fruit Pleasures of the World,
Fine Desserts Of Fruit And Berries,
The Sweet Pantry,
Compote, Marmalades, Sweet Sauces, Hand Crafted Juices, And Caramelized Fruits,
Snacking Doesn't Have to Be a Sin,
The Sweet Health Food Kitchen,
Dining à la Crème,
Creams, Mousses, And Foams,
Airy, Light, Sweet, & Fluffy,
Soufflés, Casseroles, Schmarren, And Pudding,
Greetings from Flour Heaven,
Dumplings, Noodles, Pastry Pockets, Gnocchi, Pancakes, Buchteln, Dalken, And Doughnuts,
The Home Ice Cream Parlor,
Ice Cream, Sorbet, Granita, And Parfaits,
The Microcosm of Sweets,
Cookies And Candies,
Mörwald's Sweet Greetings,
The Best Of Toni M.'s Pâtisserie,
The Sweet ABC,
Principles Of The Sweet Kitchen From A To Z,
The Authors,