Austrian

Linzertorte is really a big jam-topped cookie, and, for the amount of work—it’s pretty simple—is one of the most impressive desserts around. You can make individual cookies if you prefer. Red currant or raspberry jam is traditional, but you can use any jam you like as long as it is of high quality. If it is not already seedless, strain it to remove the seeds.

This soft dough is a pleasure to knead on the table. You could mix it in a food processor, but since it only requires 3 or 4 minutes of kneading, and feels so good, I prefer to do it by hand.

Think of this sweetie as a giant Linzer tart cookie. Use any flavor of fruit preserves that you want, add a bit of fresh fruit if you like, and have fun making a little crisscross lattice top! It’s super-cinchy—the only thing to remember is to use really high-quality preserves.

Fry up this German classic tonight. A squeeze of lemon juice over the top brightens up the thin, crispy cutlets.

Editor's note: This recipe appears as part of our editors' Christmas Cookie Swap, 10 beloved holiday recipes from the editors of Epicurious and Gourmet Live. This is loosely adapted from an old recipe that originally appeared in The New York Times. It calls for vanilla sugar, a blend of confectioners' sugar and the seeds from a vanilla bean. The mixture keeps indefinitely and is wonderful sprinkled over French toast or berries.

The piquant pickled red onions are the ideal topping for this traditional Austro-Hungarian cheese spread.

In the past few years, bakers have been upping the ante with chocolate desserts (think of your local American bistro's "warm chocolate cakes with gooey chocolate centers").

For dessert, Grimes was inspired by something from Vienna, a little farther along the Danube: linzertorte. It's traditionally made with hazelnuts and raspberry jam, but this version, with its warmly spiced almond pastry and vivid apricot filling, spoke to Grimes of the highly polished coffeehouses in that part of the world. Cooking dried apricots with brandy and sugar allows you to control the sweetness quotient, and the result is all about the magically musky, tangy fruit.

Editor's note: This recipe is from chef Wolfgang Puck. I grew up only about 280 miles west of Transylvania, as the bat flies. So maybe my mother cooked with so much garlic to keep the vampires away from my sisters, my brother, and me. Actually, Austrians, like many Europeans, love the powerful bulb, and as a child I ate more than my share of it in soups, stews, sautés, roasts, and other savory dishes. But only as a professional chef did I learn the secret of roasting garlic. Because its texture is buttery and rich, I like to spread it on crostini. Once you've spread the roasted garlic over your toasts you can choose from a number of toppings.

For this lighter-than-air Austrian soufflé, we've added tart lingonberry sauce, but any preserves or jam will work.

In the late nineteenth century, the city of Czernowitz, known as the Vienna of Eastern Europe, was famous throughout Austria-Hungary for its tolerance, civic beauty, culture, and learning. Frequently renationalized over the last millennium, Czernowitz has passed through Romanian, Ottoman, and Austrian control and is now a Ukrainian city called Chernivtsi. At its cultural peak at the turn of the twentieth century, it was populated and governed by Jews from Poland, Russia, Austria, and Romania — it even hosted the first-ever Yiddish-language conference in 1908. Of course, World War II destroyed this idyll, and most of the city's Jews were deported to Auschwitz. This recipe for a classic European challah (pronounced "chern-o-vitzer") comes from the late Lotte Langmann. It is not terribly sweet or eggy, but it is generously enriched with oil. The Austrians traditionally use a four-stranded braid, but this dough holds its shape so beautifully during baking that it is a great choice for showing off any fancy shape. This has become one of my favorite challah recipes.

Topfenknodel A distant relative of mine, originally from the Polish-German-Czechoslovakian border area (previously part of the Austrian Empire), was an exceptional cook but refused to share her recipes, claiming that either the dish would not turn out as good as hers did, in which case she would be blamed, or it would be as good or better, in which case her own cooking skills would be diminished. Among her repertoire were light, slightly tangy cheese dumplings. No one, however, ever wrangled the real recipe from her. Fortunately, I found a number of cooperative cooks who were more than willing to share their recipes with me. These popular dumplings are called topfenknodel in Austria and Germany, turos gomboc in Hungary, syrove knedliky in Czech, and kluski in Poland. Topfen, also called quark in German, is a thick, slightly tangy central European curd cheese popular for making dumplings, spreads, and toppings. Since topfen is generally unavailable in America, a little cream cheese is added to the pot cheese to approximate the original texture and flavor. You can substitute farmer cheese for the pot cheese, but first wrap it in several layers of paper towels, then let it drain for about 10 minutes to extract some of the excess moisture. Do not use cottage cheese, which contains too much liquid and is too firm. My grandmother served savory cheese dumplings on Shavuot as an appetizer, accompanied with sour cream or browned bread crumbs (2 cups fresh bread crumbs sautéed in 6 tablespoons butter until golden), or a sweetened version as dessert.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here. David Bouley: Mario and I wanted to put fresh herring on the menu, but we couldn't find a consistent source for the best product from the North Sea. So we came up with this dish using mackerel, an underused fish in this country. When you marinate the raw mackerel, it becomes very mellow in flavor. It's a clean-tasting fish, not a bit "fishy" or strong. We marinate the mackerel in Bibb lettuce and cucumber juices, then mix it with beet and apple for sweetness and a little crunch. It's both light and refreshing.

(Vanillesauce) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Rick Rodgers's book Kaffeehaus: The Best Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. To read more about Austrian cooking, click here. This recipe originally accompanied Farmer's Cheese and Raisin Filo Strudel. A cousin to the French crème anglaise, this pale yellow dessert sauce is called Kanarienmilch, or "canary milk," in some old cookbooks. The Viennese version is boiled, as the egg yolks are protected from curdling by the cornstarch. This makes it a slightly thicker, less egg-rich sauce that beautifully offsets Austro-Hungarian desserts. Because it takes less watching, I now use Vanillesauce whenever I need a vanilla dessert sauce.

(Topfenstrudel) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Rick Rodgers's book Kaffeehaus: The Best Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. Rodgers also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Austrian cooking, click here. Not every café has a full-time baker. At many, it's just Mama in the kitchen and often Mama doesn't feel like (or doesn't have enough counter space for) hand-pulling strudel dough. This classic recipe layers store-bought filo dough with a Topfen filling in a pan to make a deep-dish dessert. Thanks to Gerda Hofer for this recipe.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here. Spätzle are tiny dumplings that you make by passing a thin batter through a colander (or a spätzle maker) into a pot of boiling water. You can serve them simply boiled and drained, topped with melted butter and poppy seeds, or fried with onions and cheese as we do here. This is a rich mountain-style skiers' dish that will really keep you going.

This torte is a masterful mix of textures: The top crust bakes up with a hint of crackly crunch, giving way to a moist, light interior studded with tiny bits of hazelnut.

Because the blackberry coulis flavors the glaze for this dark chocolate cake, it should be made ahead of the cake.

Making spaetzle at home is simple and satisfying. Serve it with buttery mushrooms or pair the naked dumplings with any saucy dish.

An adaptation of Viennese butterschnitzel, these individual meatloaves are incredibly moist and juicy.