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An Austrian Christmas

December 21, 2022 Leave a Comment Filed Under: Austria, Baking, chocolate, Christmas, Christmas Gifts, Desserts and sweets, Food, Travel

Austria knows how to do Christmas. In winter the whole country looks like a snowy Christmas card with wooden chalets, sleighs and bells.
On a recent visit I met the Von Trapp family, of Sound of Music fame, at their castle ,Schloss Friedberg, listened to yodelling, and drank mulled wine while enjoying typically Christmassy recipes such as Linzer cookies. The classic Christmas carol ‘Silent Night’ was written in Salzburg, Austria.
Austrians, even the younger generation, still wear on a daily basis, traditional picture-book outfits such as dirndls and lederhosen.
‘We never wash our lederhosen’ declared one cheerful local. He possesses ten pairs of the suede shorts.
Elisabeth Gürtler, whose family runs the Sacher Hotel in Vienna, home of the celebrated Sacher Torte, a chocolate and apricot jam cake, always wears a dirndl.
I stayed at Elisabeth’s magical pine-scented Alpine hotel in Seefeld, part of the Tyrol region, which boasts mountain views, stags heads and painted furniture. It’s like living in a fairy tale, populated by adult versions of Hansel and Gretel.
Austrians celebrate Christmas on the eve. Why not bake a Sacher Torte as a perfect alternative to a Christmas fruit cake and some Linzer cookies?


Print

Ilse's Sachertorte

My guide to Vienna gave me this foul-proof recipe for this delicious chocolate cake.
There are two ways to melt chocolate:
1) Chopped up in a 'bain-marie', which is a basin set over a pan of boiling water, the bottom of which should not touch the water.
2) In a microwave, in short 30 second blasts. Do not be tempted to go longer than 30 seconds at a time. Chocolate is expensive and you do not want to seize it.
Course Afternoon Tea, Cake, Dessert
Cuisine Austrian
Keyword Austrian cakes, Austrian desserts, Chocolate cake, Indian pancakes, Sachertorte
Serves 10

Ingredients

For the cake:

  • 150 g butter, room temperature
  • 230 g caster sugar
  • 5 eggs separated
  • 150 g dark chocolate, melted
  • 230 g flour
  • 12 g baking powder
  • Pinch salt
  • 180 ml whole milk
  • 300 g of apricot jam, no bits

For the mirror glaze:

  • 40 g caster sugar
  • 40 ml water
  • 170 ml double cream
  • 200 g dark chocolate
  • 25 g butter

Instructions

For the cake:

  • Beat the butter with the sugar and egg yolks in the mixer until creamy
  • Add the melted chocolate and beat again till creamy. Grease a cake tin (26cm) with butter and sprinkle with flour.
  • Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until very stiff.
  • Then add the flour (mixed with baking powder) to the butter-chocolate cream alternating with the milk.
  • Finally fold in the whipped egg whites gently with a whisk.
  • Pour into cake tin and bake for about 45 minutes.
  • After removing the cake from the oven, leave to cool in the tin for about 5mins, then turn around onto a flat plate and remove the tin.
  • Heat the apricot jam gently until smooth.
  • Cut the cake in half crosswise, cover the base with jam and set the other half gently on top. Coat the top and around the edges with the rest of the jam.
  • When cool, cover with chocolate frosting (ideal is dark couverture melted with butter in a bain-marie).
  • Serve with whipped cream!

For the glaze:

  • In a small saucepan over a medium heat, dissolve the sugar in the water. Remove from the heat.
  • Add 2 tablespoons of the double cream to the sugar syrup
  • Melt the chocolate, adding the butter.
  • Add the rest of the double cream
  • Mix the syrup and chocolate mix together
  • Place the sandwiched cake on a grill placed over a plate to catch the drips
  • Pour over the cake, tipping it this way and that, to cover the top and sides. Do not smooth over, you want an unblemished shiny glaze.
  • Any extra can be scraped off the plate and kept in the fridge for other treats

Print

Linzer cookies with quince jelly

Course Afternoon Tea, Biscuits
Cuisine Austrian
Keyword Austrian biscuits, Biscuits, Linzer Cookies, Linzercookies
Serves 10

Ingredients

  • 150 g plain flour
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 90 g butter, room temperature
  • 60 g ground almonds
  • 100 g caster sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 150 g jam (I used quince jelly)
  • icing sugar to dust

Instructions

  • Stir together the flour, cinnamon and rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs
  • Add the ground almonds and sugar then gradually stir in the egg, kneading slightly until you have a firm dough.
  • Flour a clean surface and roll out the biscuit dough to 3mm thick.
  • Cut out 20 biscuits and then using the smaller cutter, cut out the centres of 10.
  • Preheat the oven to 180C.
  • Lay on the parchment or silat on a flat baking tray and chill in the fridge for half an hour.
  • Bake the biscuits for 30 minutes or until slightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.
  • Spread the jam on half of the biscuits then sandwich them. Dust with icing sugar.

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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