Sweet seduction

There are so many great-tasting things originating in the mountains: There is for example the so-called Kaiserschmarrn, a sugared pancake with raisins and best-known in Austria.

Made with more than the usual number of eggs, you mix them with flour, milk, dark rum, raisins and vanilla sugar. The pancake is split into pieces while frying, sprinkled with powdered sugar and is served hot with an apple or cranberry sauce. Your children will love it! Look for delicious glazed fruit at the Christmas markets and try apricot or plum dumplings made out of potato or quark dough! By the way: the Viennese apple strudel belongs to the most famous Austrian pastries and its variations are available throughout the whole of Austrian mountains.

And then, there are the so-called Faschingskrapfen, oh-so sweet doughnuts made of yeast dough and filled with jam or custard cream. Once produced only during carnival season, they are now available throughout the whole year. Other Austrian and South Tyrolean specialities are the so-called “Kniakiachl” and Bauernkrapfen, two deep-fried roundish pastries served on holidays only (pic: Krapfen of the Val d’Ultimo, South Tyrol). Made of yeast dough, they are filled with jam or poppy and finally topped with icing sugar. The “Ingsaanten Niggelen” are again made of yeast dough and filled with poppy, sugar, cinnamon and melted butter. They are particularly popular in the east of Tyrol and one of the tastiest sweets ever!

Switzerland is famous for its “Zigerkrapfen”, deep-fried pastries filled with raisins and quark. And the delicious Fasnachtskiachli e.g. are scrambled eggs fried in hot oil. Another culinary highlight are cream puffs. The exquisite sweet is made of choux pastry and filled with cream or custard cream. Profiteroles are a further delightful dessert. As one of the smallest members of the cream puff family, profiteroles originate in the French and Italian cuisine. They may be filled with meat, but are usually combined with cream and drizzled with the most luscious chocolate sauce. Mmmmh…

And who doesn’t know the Viennese Sacher cake? True chocolate pleasure i waiting for you. In Slovenia you will find the so-called štruklji, a special kind of quark strudel, which boasts even more than 100 variations. The best dessert ever in Slovenia is, however, the luscious prekmurska gibanica. Similar to a strudel, it is filled with poppies, quark, walnuts and apples. Potica is a thinly rolled yeast cake, again with a tasteful nut filling, poppies, raisins and loads of herbs, quark, honey and greaves.

The Alpine countries are, moreover, known to produce particularly lovely kinds of sweets. The genuine Mozartkugeln are tasty chocolate balls filled with marzipane and produced in Salzburg. Pleasure for all senses! And Switzerland is famous for its Toblerone chocolate, a unique mixture of quality Swiss milk chocolate, honey and almond nougat. France boasts the so-called pistoles, divine flat wafers or disks of chocolate. Once Queen Marie Antoinette’s favourites, still today the chocolate disks are made of vanilla, almond milk and orange petals and obviously 60, 72, 85 or even 99% of it of chocolate. Many a chocolate bar in France and Switzerland is by the way a true highlight!