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Seeking a Viennese pastry resource


David Riley

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I'm interested in Viennese pastry - particularly in the making of strudel dough - and have been looking for a work that explores it; however, I am unable to find any that satisfy me. Most books seem to focus on gimmicky photography rather than clearly present the techniques that are the hallmark of the art. Could anyone possibly offer some suggestions?

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This site gives a pictorial how-to on how to make strudel dough. Something I have always wanted to make, but have been a bit afraid of.

I took a "Serious Foodie Pastry Course" last year and we made strudel at the first class. It really wasn't hard at all, although seeing a demo first certainly took the scariness factor out of it. I wonder if there's a video online anywhere?

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Orison Swett Marden

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I've made strudel dough based on recipes and techinques in Rick Rodgers Kaffeehaus book as well as Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible. It's actually pretty easy as long as you have a decent sized table and are will to sacrifice a table cloth to be impregnated with flour - and to get flour on the floor, which is difficult to avoid.

The Kaffeehaus book is a good overall introduction to Viennese pastries.

Edited by rickster (log)
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I've made strudel dough based on recipes and techinques in Rick Rodgers Kaffeehaus book as well as Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible. It's actually pretty easy as long as you have a decent sized table and are will to sacrifice a table cloth to be impregnated with flour - and to get flour on the floor, which is difficult to avoid.

The Kaffeehaus book is a good overall introduction to Viennese pastries.

I've also had good success with many recipes in Kaffehaus and would second rickster's recommendation for the book as well as his specific comments on having a big table and a tablecloth to use for making strudel! I think the book is particularly good as an introduction to desserts of Vienna, Austria and of the Austro-Hungarian empire. There are many photos and the recipes are quite explicit and use up to date ingredients and technigues. I think this would be the best single book to buy, in English, at least initially. I used it just this weekend to make Chesnut Slcies. click

I'm particularly interested in Austrian desserts so I have fair number of other books as well. Some of them are:

Viennese Cooking by O. and A. Hess

Classic Austrian Cooking by Gretel Beer

and

East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube by David Bouley

Viennese Cooking is a classic book with not only desserts. This is an older cookbook, no photos or introductory paragraphs and sparse instructions but may be helpful after becoming familiar with desserts in Kaffeehaus and if you are particularly interested in classic recipes.

I like the Gretel Beer book; many wonderful classic recipes and good instructions. The sweet section comprises half of the 400 pages so you can see where Austrian's priorities lie in the culinary spectrum!

East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube has primarily classic dishes among its dessert recipes. There are also photos, so you may enjoy it as an additional but limited resource. I say limited because the book is not specific to desserts. This is a restaurant cookbook from the high end restaurant, Danube, in NYC. While most of the savory dishes are rather involved and are more interpretive of classic dishes, the dessert dishes stay closer to traditional versions.

The pastry, torte, cookie and dessert repertoire is so vast and diverse for patisserie and home desserts from Vienna, Austria and the former empire that many recipes in these books and the dozen or so other books I have only show up in one of the books. There are also many variations for particular dishes.

For strudel in particular, I use a recipe from my Austrian grandmother, but I haven't made it recently enough to confidently pass it on. I hope to try it soon and if all works out well I'll take notes and post about it somewhere. Rickster's personal experience with the recipe in Kaffehaus sounds like a great recommendation though and a good place to start. Lidia Bastianich who grew up in Istria, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, also has some very detailed instructions with photos on making strudel dough in some of her books including Lidia's Family Table.

Here's a thread in the "Elsewhere in Europe" forum where people have shared some of their favorite desserts from this tradition: click

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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clearly present the techniques that are the hallmark of the art. Could anyone possibly offer some suggestions?

To really understand it, a book will not help much. Watching strudel being made is very cool, and making it is easy once you understand the process, but it is not something best learned from a book but from a demonstration or a class. One of my first bosses was Austrian and I learned to make it just by making a ton, because he always put it on the menu even in the tropics.

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Knish dough, replacing the egg yolks with more whites, can be used for strudel. Toss some breadcrumbs onto the pulled dough before adding the filling and rolling. It helps to keep the layers defined.
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