The Legend of the Austrian Pie
Tyrolean pies are now known in manycountries, and it could have happened that the world would never have known about them if not for an accident. There is an old legend in Austria, which could well have been true. The legend says that one day, several centuries ago, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph went hunting with his retinue in the forests around Tyrol. After a successful day spent in the bosom of nature, the august person and her entourage were surprised to find that they were lost. Having wandered for some time through dense thickets, the travelers came across a path that led them to a small village at the foot of the Alps. Entering the first hut, tired and hungry Franz Joseph embarrassed its poor inhabitants by asking them to feed him and his retinue. Since the peasants did not have any refined food for noble persons in the house, the hostess served the only dish that she had prepared the day before the arrival of the unexpected guests. It was a berry pie baked according to an old family recipe. Having tried the treat, the emperor was surprised and delighted by its delicate taste. Franz Joseph generously thanked the peasants. This family never again suffered poverty, becoming a supplier of delicious pies to the Austrian court, where noble people tried them. This is how the fame of the pie, which a little later received the name Tyrolean, gradually grew and spread, and its recipe eventually became available to others.
What is the famous Austrian dessert?
The famous Tyrolean pie isa pastry made of shortcrust or sponge dough with the most delicate custard, decorated with berries or fruits. Cherry, blueberry and strawberry desserts are the most common, but many people prefer pineapple, apple and even cheese pie. In addition to the classic version, there are currently several types of Tyrolean pie. It can be prepared as a charlotte or as a cake filled with fruit and berry jelly. You can add nuts, cinnamon, cloves to the dough. But fruits or berries must be mandatory ingredients of this dish. Below are 3 recipes for Austrian dessert. And every sweet tooth will find a Tyrolean pie to their taste.
Sand cake with cherries
This is a recipe for a classic pie from Tyrol. To prepare it, you will need 3 groups of products.
First, you should wash the cherries and clean thempits and sprinkle with sugar or powdered sugar. Cut the butter into pieces with a knife and, after combining with sugar, mix until smooth. Then add the eggs, then the flour and knead the elastic dough. To cool the warm shortbread mass, place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Roll out the cooled dough and carefully place it on a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil. Bake for 15 minutes at 220 degrees. Remove the finished base from the oven and, after cooling, transfer to a deep form. The recipe for real Tyrolean custard includes fried flour, which gives the cream a nutty flavor. Fry 1 tbsp. flour in a frying pan until golden brown. Then beat the yolks with powdered sugar with a whisk. Add browned flour and 1 tbsp. starch to the mixture, beat until smooth. Heat a glass of milk in a saucepan, add the cream, mix everything, add the remaining milk and, stirring the mixture, bring it to a boil. When the first signs of thickening appear, remove the saucepan from the heat and cool the cream to room temperature. Put warm cream on the shortbread base in the form and put the product in the refrigerator. After 30 minutes, take the pie out of the refrigerator, decorate it with sweet cherries on top. Dissolve instant gelatin in 100 g of cold water, add the juice that the cherries gave off. Pour this mixture over the cherries and put the dessert back in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to harden the layer of fruit jelly. The classic Tyrolean pie is ready!
Cake with dried fruits filling
This recipe makes it quick and easyprepare another type of Tyrolean delicacy. First, you need to stock up on the necessary products. To prepare the dough, you will need 500 g of flour, 250 g of butter and sugar, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. For the filling, you will need 2 tbsp. pitted prunes, 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar, 2 teaspoons of sugar and powdered sugar, a little spice for piquancy: cardamom and cloves. First, soak the prunes in cold water for an hour to soften. Rub the butter with sugar, add eggs and mix until a homogeneous mass is formed. Sift the flour, combine with baking powder and salt and add to the egg-butter mixture. Knead the dough until the consistency of thick sour cream and divide it into two parts. Line a baking tray or pan with parchment paper and spread the first half of the dough on it. Bake it for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, drain the soaked prunes in a colander and cut each fruit into halves. Mix them with sugar, spices and vanilla sugar. Remove the baking tray with the crust from the oven or stove, spread the dried fruit filling on it and pour the second half of the dough over it. The product should be baked for about 40 minutes. Then the pie should be removed from the oven and, after cooling a little, sprinkled with powdered sugar on top. This Tyrolean recipe can be modified by replacing the dried fruit filling with fresh fruit: apricots or plums.
Cheese dessert from Tyrol
Another delicious dessert that comes from Tyrol,— this is a cheese pie, the main component of which, giving it its originality, is cottage cheese. To prepare this dessert, you will need 500 g of cottage cheese, 300 g of sugar, 100 g of butter, 1 cup of flour, baking powder, 4 eggs, 2 small sour apples and 150 g of strawberries. In addition, you need to have half a lemon, 30 g of cognac and 30 g of water on hand. The recipe for making a cheese dessert is quite simple. First, squeeze the juice out of the lemon and rub the cottage cheese through a sieve, sift the flour and mix with baking powder. Soften the butter and beat it with a mixer with 250 g of sugar. Continuing to beat the mass, pour in a thin stream of lemon juice with cognac, and then add the eggs. After that, add flour with baking powder and cottage cheese. Using a mixer, you can achieve a homogeneous mass, the consistency of which resembles thick sour cream. Cover a round baking pan with parchment paper and pour the prepared dough into it. Place in a preheated oven and bake the Tyrolean pie at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes. While the dough is getting ready, you need to prepare the syrup and the fruit and berry topping for the pie. For the syrup, mix the remaining 50 g of sugar in a saucepan with 30 ml of water, put the dishes on low heat and cook the mixture until thickened. Wash the apples and strawberries, remove the core from the apples and cut them into slices, cut the berries into plates. Remove the baked pie from the oven and cool slightly. After that, beautifully lay out the apples and strawberries on it and pour syrup over them. When the syrup cools, the dish is ready.
Tips for the housewives to note
As already mentioned above, Tyrolean piecan be prepared in different ways. Each recipe has its own additions, the composition of the products is slightly modified, only the main components are left. For example, pies with fillings can be decorated with custard from the classic recipe on top or you can make protein cream. Some sweet tooths pour caramel or chocolate glaze on top of the treats. You can cook pies with one type of berries or mix them with each other, for example, a combination of only sweet berries or sour and sweet, as you like. By the way, it is recommended to use not only fresh but also frozen berries for the Tyrolean dessert, however, before putting them on the pie, they should first be defrosted. If the hostess wants to make a high sponge cake, you can bake several layers, layering them with fruit and berry filling, and placing cream and another layer of berries and fruits on top. This way you will get a real Austrian cake. The custard and jelly that are part of the pies have a rather unstable structure, so Tyrolean pies in stores can be seen in paper forms, otherwise they will simply crawl in different directions during transportation. At home, you should also take care of the forms to give the delicacies stability. Some housewives add a little gelatin to the custard, which makes it denser, but the cream then acquires a different taste. If you want to fill the fruits and berries of the top layer of the pie with jelly, it is better to buy special jelly for cakes, which hardens very quickly, without being absorbed deep into the product. The most delicate Austrian desserts with a centuries-old history travel around the world year after year, finding thousands of new fans, and this is natural. After having tasted the most delicious pies at least once, their lovers begin to experiment with the preparation of these confectionery products, trying one recipe after another, baking shortbread and biscuit delicacies, mixing various fruits and berries in them and creating their own sweet masterpieces.
