Wiener Brioches - Vienna Brioches

This is for the ones who enjoy desserts ;)

Soften 2 envelopes of yeast in 1/4 cup lukewarm water and add 1 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 cup sifted flour, beating thoroughly until the mixture is smooth. Let the sponge rise, covered, in a warm place for about 20 minutes. In a large bowl, put 1 1/2 cups sifted flour and add 1/2 cup butter softened at room temperature, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1 egg. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon, adding gradually 1/4 cup milk, scalded and cooled, to make a smooth paste. Add 1/3 cup butter, 2 eggs, and 2 cups sifted flour and beat the paste until it is smooth and no longer sticky. Make a well in the center and add the sponge and 2 eggs. Beat them in and then knead the dough well. Put it in a buttered bowl and let it rise, covered, in a warm place about 1 1/2 hours. Turn it out on a lightly floured board and beat it down with the palm of the hand. Return it to the bowl and let it ripen overnight in the refrigerator.

Lovely looking brioche (Photo was taken in Seattle, WA, US - a brioche goes around the world ;) )

Photo by WordRidden, Flickr

Turn it onto a lightly floured board and again beat it down with the palm of the hand. Return a fourth of the dough to the refrigerator.

Shape the remaining dough into 16 balls about the size size of eggs. Put them in well-buttered muffin pans, with cups about 3 inches in diameter. Shape the chilled dough into 16 balls about the size of marbles. Cut a cross in the top of each large ball. Make a hollow in each ball and insert a small ball, to form the crown of each brioche. Let the brioches rise, covered, in a warm place until they double in bulk, about 50 minutes, and brush the tops gently with 1 egg yolk blended with 1 tablespoon cold milk. Bake the brioches in a very hot oven (425 F.) until they are shiny and brown, 30 to 40 minutes.

Cool them on wire racks. Makes 16 brioches. The dough may also be shaped into one large and one smaller ball. Put the larger ball in a brioche pan, cut a cross in it, and insert the smaller ball. Bake this large brioche in a hot oven (400 F.) for 45 to 60 minutes.

Recipe taken from Old Vienna Cookbook by Lillian Langseth-Christensen.

Guten Appetit!

Raspberry Shortbread - Buttergebäck mit Himbeer

Another sweet dish..I couldn't resist ;) When you see the pictures you know why.
A perfect dessert for Christmastime but also during the year. I found this one at smittenkitchen.com

Austrian Raspberry Shortbread




I made several adaptations to the original recipe. The first was that although the shortbread is wonderful plain, it is it, indeed, plain. I think a little lemon zest, a splash of vanilla or even both would work deliciously in the dough, and against the raspberry. The suggested baking time is almost half of what I needed to get them solidified and lightly golden in the oven–mine took an hour, in the end, and I do not suggest you take them out before they truly look done. Finally, I knew immediately that raspberry jam could not be spread over a pile of cookie shards, and plopped it into a piping bag with a big tip instead. A zip-lock bag with a 1/2-inch corner cut off would work as well. If your jam is particularly thick, you might want to heat it briefly to liquefy it slightly, though my seedless variety didn’t require this. Finally, with this especially (but also, all bar cookie and brownies), I find that they’re much easier to make clean cuts in when thoroughly chilled in the fridge.

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
4 egg yolks
2 cups granulated sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Optional additions: 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup raspberry jam, at room temperature
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar



Cream the butter in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using a hand mixer) until soft and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

Mix the granulated sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add to the butter and egg yolk mixture and mix just until incorporated and the dough starts to come together. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and form into two balls. Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and freeze at least 2 hours or overnight (or as long as a month, if you like).

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Remove one ball of dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it by hand or with the grating disk in a food processor into the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking pan or a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Make sure the surface is covered evenly with shreds of dough.

With a piping bag with a wide tip or a zip-lock bag with the corner cut off, squeeze the jam over the surface as evenly as possible, to within 1/2 inch of the edge all the way around. Remove the remaining dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it over the entire surface.

Bake until lightly golden brown and the center no longer wiggles, 50 to 60 minutes. As soon as the shortbread comes out of the oven, dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Cool on a wire rack, then cut in the pan with a serrated knife. I find that for this an all bar cookies, chilling the pan in the fridge makes it a lot easier to get clean cuts.

Salzburg Souffle - Salzburger Nockerl

Recipe found at www.aboutvienna.org

A dish that is representative for the province Salzburg and aside the apple strudel, and Kaiserschmarrn the most famous dessert in Austria

Ingredients

• 4 tsp. unsalted butter
• 4 tsp. currant or grape jelly
• whites of 9 large eggs, at -room temperature
• 1/2 c vanilla sugar
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 4 grated egg yolks
• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 c sifted all purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Place four 9-inch oval au gratin dishes (or one large oval glass lasagna pan) on a baking sheet. In each small dish place 1 teaspoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of jelly. (If you are using a lasagna pan, smear the bottom with the butter and then with the jelly.
Combine the egg whites, vanilla sugar, and lemon zest in a large metal bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form.
Beat the egg yolks with the granulated sugar. Gently fold the egg yolks and flour into the meringue. Use a spatula to place three large mounds of the mixture into each au gratin dish. Smooth the surface of each and bake for 8 minutes, until puffed and golden.
Serve immediately. This is especially good with Vanilla Sauce, warm Chocolate Sauce, or cold Strawberry Sauce (recipes separately).

Potato dough for Poppy Seed Noodles or Nutnoodles - Kartoffelteig für Mohn- oder Nussnudeln

Recipe found at www.tourmycountry.com / Photo from www.flickr.com taken by pokpok313

The potato dough base that I give here is a recipe with many variations in Austria. It gives rise to sweet fruit dumplings and gnocchi-like thingies serves with poppy seeds or grounded nuts. It is a hassle to make for dessert, but most Austrians serve it traditionally as a main course anyway. I have to admit that I have a somewhat shady approach to potato dough based meals: Since most ingredients can be quite easily dried, I tend to buy packs of instant dough in Austria that you prepare with water and egg much faster than the proper way. For traditionalists, follow the recipe.

Ingredients (4 people)

500 g potatoes
150 g flour
30 g butter
1 egg
a pitch of salt
3 tablespoons of semolina

Dough:

The dough itself: Peel and boil the potatoes and mash them. Mix the mash with all other ingredients to a smooth dough. Use it either as a base for fruit dumplings (take, say, one apricot, wrap dough around it and boil it in salty water for some 10 to 15 minutes). Or move on to the Nudel-section below.

Poppy Seed or Nutnoodles: Roll the dough into strings of about 1 to 1.5 centimetres diameter. Cut it into pieces of about 3 centimetres with a wet knife. Take these little sausage-like objects and put them into boiling, salty water. Boil them for about 10 minutes until they swim on the surface, take care not to boil them to death. In the meantime, mix poppy seeds with icing sugar or grind and roast nuts (walnut or hazelnut are good ones, but I also got good results with roasted almonds). Take the Nudeln from the water and wield them in butter. Add either the poppy seed and sugar mix or the roasted nuts. In either case, add icing sugar according to your preferences and serve hot with jam or chutneys.

Rice Cake - Reisauflauf

Explanation of the word 'Auflauf':

The term "Auflauf" generally refers to a variety of meals that are made in casseroles and baked in the oven. It is a simple dish that is easy to prepare.

Recipe found at www.tourmycountry.com

Ingredients (3 to 4 persons)

125 g of rice
125 mL of milk
salt
grated cinnamon
50 g of butter
50 g of sugar
3 eggs

Boil the milk and add all spices. Boil the rice in it until it is soft. Mix the butter with the sugar until foamy, stir in the yolks and mix all with the rice. Whip the egg white until stiff and mix them with the rice-dough. Grease a casserole or frying pan and coat it with some breadcrumbs. Then put the dough into it and bake at 175 degrees Celsius for about 40 minutes until golden-brown. Cut it into cubes and serve with chutney or fruit stew.

Carnival Doughnuts / Faschingskrapfen

I found this recipe and a little explanation to the name 'Carnival Doughnuts' at www.tourmycountry.com

Enjoy cooking and thank you for sharing!

Ingredients

6 yolks
100 g of melted butter
35 g of yeast of 1 bad of dried yeast
50 g of sugar
500 mL of warm milk
500 g of flour
1 pitch of salt
apricot jam, mixed with a dash of rum
oil
icing sugar

What Faschingskrapfen are

This Austrian-style doughnut is called "Carnival Doughnut" (Faschingskrapfen) because it is most commonly eaten during the carnival season in February. Similar doughnuts were known to the Romans, who called them "globuli" ("little balls"), dipped them in honey and poppy seeds. The Faschingskrapfen were introduced to Austria in the 17th century, supposedly "invented" by a legendary confectionary named Cäcilia Craph.

The Vienna Congress was not only the origin of the city′s obsession with balls, but also responsible for eliminating 10 Million Faschingskrapfen doughnuts in 1814/1815. Back in these days, it was a custom for a couple to share a Faschingskrapfen that the girl would break into halves upon the occasion of publicly announcing their engagement.

How to prepare Faschingskrapfen

Mix the yolks, butter, yeast, sugar and milk with the flour and let the dough sit in a warm place for about 30 minutes. Mix it and let it sit again until its volume has doubled. Then make about 20 little balls from it, which you should flatten slightly. Cover them with a kitchen towel and let them sit for another 30 minutes in a warm place.

Heat the oil in a pot and bake the Krapfen on both sides. Take them out and let the excessive oil run off. Mix the apricot jam with rum and use one of these fancy filling tools with a beak to inject the jam into the baked doughnuts. Then cover them generously with icing sugar.

Poppy Seed Strudel / Mohnstrudel

Another yummy recipe...ideal to a cup of coffee..i found this recipe on www.globetrotters.ch
Thank you for sharing!

INGREDIENTS

DOUGH

250 g flour, sieved

1 package baking powder (2 ts)

1 pinch of salt

120 g butter, soft

60 g sugar

1 egg

1 pinch of cinnamon

1/4 lemon, only peel, finely minced, a little cold milk


FILLING

250 g poppy seeds, finely ground

40 g sugar

2 tbsp honey

40 g breadcrumbs

40 g raisins (to your taste)

1 pinch of cinnamon

2 tbsp rum

1/4 l milk



PREPARATION


For the dough, sieve the flour and mix with baking powder and salt. Add soft butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, and lemon peel. Quickly kneed into dough adding a little bit of cold milk. Cover dough and let stand in a cool place for 1/2 hours.


For the filling, grind poppy seeds in the meantime (that's the only way to get all the poppy seed taste!) and heat with sugar, honey, raisins, cinnamon and rum in a small pan over low heat. The poppy seed filling has to be smooth and a little wet. If it turns out too wet you can dry it with adding breadcrumbs after it cooled out. If it's too dry soften it with a little bit of milk.


Roll the dough on a floured surface into a 45x40cm rectangle and cut into two equal parts. Spread poppy seed filling equally on both dough halfs and roll up into a strudel. Put the two strudels onto a baking sheet and bake for 40-45 minutes in medium heat.

Chocolatecake / Schokogugelhupf

Sorry for the not very helpful translation of the dish into english. Here is the translation from the Menu Dictionary:
'A special Viennese cake. the ideal accompaniment to a Melange and an essential ingredient of Viennese afternoon coffee'
I hope that will help ;) I found a very delicious recipe on thepassionatecook.typepad.com . And the fact that this cake includes chocolate makes my austrian heart pound a little bit faster.
Chocolate...I can't resist :) If you would like to know why it is called 'Lady Maria's Schokogugelhupf' Well, then you better visit the above mentioned website. It is a really nice story. But I've wrote enough, here is the recipe. Thank you for sharing!

Lady Maria's Schokogugelhupf

70 g chocolate*
140 g butter (room temperature)
140 g golden icing sugar
4 egg yolks
1 tbsp vanilla sugar (or add a tsp vanilla essence)
100 g self-raising flour (or add half a tsp baking powder)
70 g ground almonds
4 egg whites (stiff)
2 - 3 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 200C.

Melt the butter in a bain marie or a glass bowl set in a pot boiling water reaching about half-way up to the bowls rim. Leave to cool slightly.

Beat the butter and icing sugar until pale and creamy. Add the egg yolks on by one. Weigh in the flour, vanilla sugar and almonds, then pour in the melted chocolate and the milk. Beat until smooth, then quickly fold in the stiff egg whites.

Transfer to a Bundt tin (I use a silicone Gugelhupf mould, if you only have a traditional tin, butter, then dust with caster sugar or flour before filling with the dough), spread evenly and place on a middle shelf in the oven.

Bake for about 35 - 40 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool, then dust with icing sugar before serving or decorate with chocolate glaze and almond slivers.

* I tend to use a dark chocolate (ca. 70%), but this is a very forgiving recipe, so I often use up left-over Easter bunnies, chocolate eggs or Santas... in which case I reduce the amount of icing sugar used to about 100g.

Vanilla Crescent Cookies / Vanillekipferl

I found this recipe on actilingua.com

* 150 grams butter
* 210 grams flour
* 80 grams ground hazelnuts or almonds
* 80 grams powdered sugar
* one whole egg

* 60 grams powdered sugar
* 3 tablespoons vanilla sugar


Sieve the flour into a heap on a pastry board or into a large bowl.

Cut the cold butter into small pieces and mix with the flour. Add powdered sugar, ground almonds or hazelnuts and the egg.

Rinse hands with cold water and quickly knead mixture into a crisp dough. Chill for half an hour.

Form thumb thick rolls from the dough, cut into 1 cm wide pieces, roll and form crescents.

Bake at slow to medium heat (160° Celsius) for 10-15 minutes, or until very light gold in colour.

Turn the crescents in a mixture of powdered sugar and vanilla sugar while still hot. Enjoy!

Chocolatecake / Sachertorte

I found this recipe on actilingua.com

Ingredients for 12 people

Batter:

* 130 grams (4.59 ounces) butter
* 130 grams (4.59 ounces) dark chocolate
* 100 grams (3.53 ounces) powdered sugar
* 6 eggs
* 80 grams (2.82 ounces) white sugar
* 130 grams (4.59 ounces) flour
* apricot marmalade

Icing:

* 150 grams (5.29 ounces) chocolate
* 75 grams (2.65 ounces) coconut shortening

Batter:
Preheat the oven to 180-200°C.
Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler over hot water (Bain Marie, "im Wasserbad"). If you do not have a double boiler you can also use a normal pan filled with water and with a smaller pan in it. Remove from heat and let the mass cool.
Add the powdered sugar and the egg yolks little by little while carefully stirring.
Beat the egg whites and add the white sugar. Mix into the batter and add the flour gradually while constantly stirring.
Pour batter into a greased spring form pan. Bake at 165°C for 50 to 60 minutes.
Allow the cake to cool completely before removing from pan and before icing.
Once cool remove the cake from pan then slice horizontally. Insert a filling of pureed jam between the layers.

Icing:
Melt chocolate and coconut shortening in a double boiler over hot water and cover the top and sides of the cake with the warm (not hot) icing.

Viennese Apple Pie / Apfelstrudel

I found this recipe on actilingua.com

Ingredients

Pastry

* 300 grams bread flour
* pinch of salt
* 30 ml vegetable oil
* 0,2 l water (lukewarm)

Filling

* 2 kg apples (Golden Delicious)
* 150 grams granulated sugar
* 30ml dark rum
* 150 grams raisins
* 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
* 2 lemons (juice and peel)

Buttered breadcrumbs

* 300 grams butter (unsalted)
* 300 grams bread crumbs


Knead flour, salt, oil and water into a medium-firm dough. Divide into 3 small round loaves, brush each loaf with melted butter and let sit for 1 hour.

Peel, core and slice apples. Mix in granulated sugar, raisins, grated lemon peel, lemon juice, rum, cinnamon.

Roast butter and bread crumbs.

Roll the dough loaves with a rolling pin, then stretch rolled dough on a strudel sheet with the backs of your hands.
Coat 2/3 of dough sheet with buttered breadcrumbs, spread apple filling over remaining 1/3 of dough.
Tear off edges, shape strudel into roll by lifting strudel sheet.
Place strudel on a buttered baking sheet and brush with melted butter.
Bake strudel for 60 to 90 minutes in a 400 degrees F to 425 degrees F (200 to 220 degrees Celsius) oven.

Sugared Pancake with Raisins / Kaiserschmarrn

I found this recipe on actilingua.com

Ingredients for 4 people:

* 6 eggs
* 200 grams cake or pastry flour
* 50 grams sugar
* 250 milliliters milk
* pinch of salt
* 20 grams or raisins

* butter
* powdered sugar
* plum or apple puree

Separate the egg whites from yolks.
Thoroughly mix the yolks, sugar, milk and flour.
Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat until stiff.
Add stiff egg whites into the dough and fold carefully.

Melt butter in a large pan, pour in the dough and sprinkle in raisins. Let cook on one side for a few minutes, turn over and tear into pieces with a fork.

Be careful not to overcook the pancakes, otherwise they will dry out. Sprinkle powdered sugar and serve with plum or apple puree.