Kaiserschmarrn

Kaiserschmarrn is a special kind of lightly sweetened pancake that comes from Austria. It is named after Emperor Franz Joseph I, who really liked to eat this fluffy, shredded pancake. People often serve it as a sweet dessert or as a light lunch.

This tasty treat is very popular in Austria, Bavaria, and many places that were once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. You can find it in northern Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, northern Croatia, and western Romania, where people use the name or translate it into their own languages.

Etymology

The name Kaiserschmarrn comes from two words: Kaiser (meaning "emperor") and Schmarren (a word for a scrambled or shredded dish). In Austrian and Bavarian cultures, Schmarren is also a fun word that can mean "trifle," "mess," or "nonsense." It might be related to words meaning "to scrape" and "to smear," like the English word schmear (schmear).

Description

Kaiserschmarrn is a light, caramelized pancake made from a sweet batter using flour, eggs, sugar, salt, and milk, fried in butter. The egg whites are usually separated from the yolk and beaten until stiff. Then the flour and yolks are mixed with sugar, and other ingredients like nuts, cherries, plums, apple jam, or small pieces of apple are added, along with caramelized raisins and slivered almonds. These extra ingredients are not part of the original recipe but are added based on personal preference.

The pancake is shredded using two forks while frying and is usually sprinkled with powdered sugar. It is served hot with apple or plum sauce or various fruit compotes, such as plum, lingonberry, strawberry, or apple. Kaiserschmarrn is enjoyed as a dessert, but it can also be a filling lunch option in tourist places like mountainside restaurants and taverns in the Austrian Alps. Traditionally, it is served with Zwetschgenröster, a fruit compote made of plums.

History

The dish Kaiserschmarrn was first made for the Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I. There are a few stories about how it started. One story says that Empress Elisabeth, who liked to keep her waist small, asked the chef to make only light desserts. When the chef made a richer dessert, she didn’t want to eat it. Emperor Francis Joseph tried it and liked it very much, finishing both his and his wife’s portions.