Apple strudel (German: Apfelstrudel) is a
traditional Viennese strudel, a popular pastry in Austria and in many countries in Europe that once belonged to the
Austro-Hungarian empire (1867–1918).
History
A strudel is a type of sweet or savoury layered
pastry with a filling inside, that gained popularity in the 18th century
through the Habsburg (1278-1780).
Austrian cuisine was formed and influenced by
the cuisines of many different peoples (Turkish,Bosnian, Swiss, Alsatian,
French, Dutch, Italian, German, Bohemian- Moravian, Hungarian, Polish,
Croatian, Slovenian, Slovakian, and Jewish cuisines) during the many centuries
of the Austrian Habsburg Empire's expansion.
Strudel is related to the
Ottoman Empire’s pastry baklava, and came to Austria via Turkish to
Hungarian and then Hungarian to Austrian cuisine. "Strudel," a
German word, derives from the Middle High German word for "whirlpool” or
“eddy”.
Strudel is most often associated with the Austrian cuisine, but is also a
traditional pastry in the whole area formerly belonging to the
Austro-Hungarian.
In these countries, apple strudel is the most widely
known kind of strudel. Apple strudel is considered to be the national
dish of Austria along with Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz. Apple
strudel in Hungarian is called Almasretes the word
"Apfelstrudel" is German for strudel with apple.
The oldest known Strudel recipe is from 1696, a handwritten recipe
housed at the Wiener Stadbibliothek.
Pastry
Apple strudel consists of an oblong strudel pastry jacket with an apple
filling inside. The filling is made of grated cooking apple (usually of a
tart, crisp, and aromatic variety such as Winesap apples, sugar, cinnamon,
raisins, and bread crumbs.
Strudel uses an unleavened dough. The basic dough consists of flour,
oil, (or butter) and salt although as a household recipe, many variations
exist.
Apple strudel dough is a thin, elastic dough, the traditional
preparation of which is a difficult process. The dough is kneaded by
flogging, often against a table top, to align the starch molecules. Dough that
appears thick or lumpy after flogging is generally discarded and a new batch is
started. After kneading, the dough is rested, then rolled out on a wide
surface, and stretched until the dough reaches a thickness similar to
phyllo.
Filling is arranged in a line on a comparatively small section of dough,
after which the dough is folded over the filling, and the remaining dough is
wrapped around until all the dough has been used. The strudel is then oven
baked, and served warm. Apple strudel is traditionally served in slices,
sprinkled with powdered.
Topping
Topping of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, custard, or vanilla sauce
popular in many countries. Apple strudel can be accompanied by tea, coffee or
even champagne, and is one of the most common treat at Viennese cafes.
Sacher
Torte
Sachertorte is a specific type of chocolate cake, invented by Austrian
Franz Sacher in 1832 for Prince Wenzel von
Metternich in Vienna, Austria. It
is one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties.
History-Origins
Recipes
similar to that of the Sachertorte appeared as early as the eighteenth century,
one instance being in the 1718 cookbook of Conrad Hagger, another individual
represented in Gartler-Hickmann's 1749 Tried and True Viennese Cookbook (Wienerisches bewährtes Kochbuch).
In 1832,
Prince Wenzel von Metternich charged his personal chef with
creating a special dessert for several important guests. The head chef, having
taken ill, let the task fall to his sixteen-year-old apprentice, Franz Sacher, then in his second year of training
in Metternich's kitchen.
The Prince is reported to have declared, "Let
there be no shame on me tonight!" While the torte created by Sacher on
this occasion is said to have delighted Metternich's guests, the dessert
received no immediate further attention. Sacher completed his training as a
chef and afterward spent time in Pressburg and Budapest, ultimately settling in
his hometown of Vienna where he opened a specialty delicatessen and wine shop.
Sacher's
eldest son Eduard carried on his father's culinary legacy, completing his own
training in Vienna with the Royal
and Imperial Pastry
Chef at the Demel bakery and chocolatier, during which time he perfected his
father's recipe and developed the torte into its current form. The cake was
first served at the Demel and later at the Hotel Sacher, established by Eduard
in 1876. Since then, the cake remains among the most famous of Vienna's
culinary specialties.
Legal
issues
In the early
decades of the twentieth century, a legal battle over the use of the label
"The Original Sacher Torte" developed between the Hotel Sacher and
the Demel bakery. Eduard Sacher completed his recipe for Sacher Torte while
working at Demel, which was the first establishment to offer the
"Original" cake.
Following the death of Eduard's widow Anna in 1930
and the bankruptcy of the Hotel Sacher in 1934, Eduard Sacher's son (also named
Eduard Sacher) found employment at Demel and brought to the bakery the sole
distribution right for an Eduard-Sacher-Torte.
The first
differences of opinion arose in 1938, when the new owners of the Hotel Sacher
began to sell Sacher Tortes from vendor carts under the trademarked name
"The Original Sacher Torte".
After interruptions brought about by the
Second World War and the ensuing Allied occupation, the hotel owners sued Demel
in 1954, with the hotel asserting its trademark rights and the bakery claiming
it had bought the rights to the name "Original Sacher Torte".
Over the next
seven years, both parties waged an intense legal war over several of the
dessert's specific characteristics, including the change of the name, the
second layer of jam in the middle of the cake, and the substitution of
margarine for butter in the baking of the cake. The author
Friedrich Torberg, who was a frequent guest at both establishments, served as a
witness during this process and testified that, during the lifetime of Anna Sacher, the cake was never covered with
marmalade or cut through the middle.
In 1963 both parties agreed on an out of
court settlement that gave the Hotel Sacher the rights
to the phrase "The Original Sachertorte" and gave the Demel the
rights to decorate its tortes with a triangular seal that reads Eduard-Sacher-Torte.
December 5 is
National Sachertorte Day.
Composition
The cake consists of
two layers of dense chocolate sponge cake with a thin layer of apricot jam in
the middle, coated in dark chocolate icing on the top and sides. It is
traditionally served with whipped cream without any sugar in it.
Variations
"Original"
Sacher Torte has two layers of apricot jam between the outer layer of chocolate
icing and the sponge base, while Demel's "Eduard-Sacher-Torte" has
only one.
There are
various recipes for cakes similar to the "Original", and some may be
found below. For example, at "Graz-Kulturhauptstadt 2003", a festival
marking the city of Graz being declared cultural capital that year,
"Sacher-Masoch-Torte" was presented (its name alluding to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch), using redcurrant jam and marzipan.
Production and sale of
the "Original Sacher Torte"
Hotel
Sacher's "Original Sacher Torte" is sold at the Vienna and Salzburg
locations of the Hotel Sacher, at Cafe Sacher branches in Innsbruck and Graz, at the Sacher Shop in Bozen, in the
Duty Free area of Vienna airport and via the
Hotel Sacher's online shop.
The recipe
of the Hotel Sacher's version of the cake is a closely guarded secret. Those
privy to it claim that the secret to the Sacher Torte's desirability lies not
in the ingredients of the cake itself, but rather those of the chocolate icing.
According to widely available information, the icing consists of three special
types of chocolate, which are produced exclusively by different manufacturers
for this sole purpose. The hotel obtains these products from Lubeck in Germany and from Belgium.
Original Recipe
Sacher
Cake/Sachertorte “This is the original recipe, obtained through the courtesy of
Mrs. Anna Sacher.”
Recipe:
3/4 cup (170
g) butter; 6 1/2 oz. (180 g) semi-sweet chocolate; 3/4 cup (170 g) sugar; 8 egg
yolks; 1 cup (120 g) flour; 10 egg whites, stiffly beaten; 2 tbls. apricot jam;
icing: 1 cup (225 g) sugar; 1/3 cup (80 ml) water; 7 oz. (200 g) semi-sweet
chocolate.
Method-Beat
butter until creamy. Melt chocolate. Add sugar and chocolate to butter; stir.
Add egg yolks one at a time. Add flour. Fold in egg whites. Grease and butter
8-9" cake tin. Pour mixture in. Bake in 275 degree F (140 degree C). oven
about 1 hour. Test with toothpick or straw. Remove to board; cool. Cut top off
and turn bottom up. Heat apricot jam slightly and spread over top. Cover with
chocolate icing, prepared as follows:
Cook sugar
and water to thin thread. Melt chocolate in top of double boiler. Add sugar
gradually to chocolate. Stir constantly until icing coats the spoon. Pour on
top of cake.
LINZER TORTE
The Linzer Torte (or Linzertorte) is an Austrian torte with a lattice design on top of the
pastry. It is named after the city of Linz,
Austria.
Linzer Torte
is a very short, crumbly pastry made of flour, unsalted butter, egg yolks, lemon zest, cinnamon and lemon juice, and ground nuts, usually hazelnuts, but even walnuts or almonds are used, covered with a filling of redcurrant jam or, alternatively, plum butter, thick raspberry, or apricot jam. It is covered by a lattice of dough strips. The dough is rolled
out in very thin strips of pastry and arranged to form a criss-cross design on
top of the preserves. The pastry is brushed with lightly
beaten egg whites, baked, and sometimes decorated with sliced almonds.
Linzer Torte
is a holiday classic in the Austrian, Hungarian, Swiss, German, and Tirolean
traditions, often eaten at Christmas. Linzer Torte is often made like
small tarts or cookies in North American bakeries.
Linzer ‘sables’ (German: Linzer Augen, "Linzer eyes") are a
cookie-sized version, made by cutting a circle of a similar dough, covering it
with jam, placing a donut-like circle with a hole in the centre piece of dough
on top, and dusting with confectioner's sugar.
History
The Linzer
Torte is said to be the oldest-known cake in the world. For a long time a
recipe from 1696 in the Vienna
Stadt- und
Landesbibliothek was the oldest one known. In 2005, however, Waltraud Faißner,
the library director of the Upper Austrian Landesmuseum and author of the book
"Wie mann die Linzer Dortten macht" ("How to make the Linzer
Torte") found an even older Veronese recipe from 1653 in Codex 35/31 in
the archive of Admont Abbey.
Besides, the
invention of the Linzer Torte is subject of numerous legends, reporting on a
Viennese confectioner named Linzer (as given by Alfred Polgar) or the Franconian pastry chef Johann Konrad Vogel (1796–1883), who
about 1823 at Linz started the mass production of the cake that made it famous
around the world.
The Austrian
traveller Franz Hölzlhuber in the 1850s allegedly brought the Linzer Torte to
Milwaukee, whence the recipe spread over the United States.
ESTERHAZY TORTE
Esterházy torte is a Hungarian and A
ustrian cake named after Paul III Anton , Prince Esterhazy, a
wealthy prince and diplomat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It has become one
of the most famous cakes in Europe.
It was invented in the 19th
century in honor of Prince Esterházy.
Esterházy torte consists of butter cream sandwiched between
four to five layers of almond meringue.
There are, however, many different recipe variations.
PUNSCHKRAPFEN
Punschkrapfen or Punschkrapferl (punch cake) is a classical Austrian
confection of pastry with a fine
rum flavor. It is similar to the French pastry, the petit four.
Today, one can find
Punschkrapfen in every pastry shop and bakery in Austria.
Composition
It is a
cake filled with cake crumbs, nougat chocolate, apricot jam and then soaked with
rum. The cake is cut into 1-1/2 inch square cubes, covered with so called Punschglasur
(punch icing), thick pink rum sugar glazing and often drizzled with chocolate
and a cocktail cherry on top. Nowadays, there are also Punschkrapfen in
cylindrical form.
History
It is
highly disputed who made the first Punschkrapfen and where it came from. Maybe
it was introduced to Vienna in the Middle
Ages by the Avars or
the Ottoman armies had brought
the Punschkrapfen to Vienna (the Second
Turkish Siege) or it was invented by an imperial court confectioner.
Trivia
In Vienna it is said that the
Punschkrapferl renders the typical Austrian character: red outside, brown
inside, and always a little smashed.
“Punschkrapferl”
is a term often used by Austrians to describe Nazi politicians who joins the Social Democrats after World War
II. These politicians are said to be pink (a colour associated with socialism )
on the outside and brown (a colour associated with Nazism) on the inside.
Robert Menasse suggested satirically that the
Punschkrapfen should become the Austrian National Symbol.-wikipedia
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