Austrian & German desserts

The dessert traditions of Austria and Germany — with their close cousins in Switzerland, Hungary and Bohemia — sit at the rich centre of European baking. The defining preparations are the strudel (apple, curd, poppyseed), the Torte (the multi-layered cake — Sachertorte, Linzertorte, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte), the Krapfen (filled doughnut), the Stollen (Christmas yeast bread), the Lebkuchen (spiced honey biscuit), and the small, butter-rich Plätzchen baked by the dozen at Christmas.

The pantry runs on butter, quark (Topfen), cream, poppyseed, marzipan, chocolate, candied peel, and the year's soft fruit — plums, cherries, apricots, apples — preserved into compotes and jams.

Many of the classics carry the marks of the former Habsburg empire — the technique of strudel-stretching arrived from the Ottomans, and many of the Viennese cakes share recipes with their Czech and Hungarian counterparts under different names.