Punschkrapfen is a traditional Austrian pastry soaked in rum and coated in a pink sugary glaze. Its exact history is unclear, but it is a popular dessert found in pastry shops and on menus throughout Austria. It is similar to French petit fours and can be mistaken for them. Buchteln is another Austrian pastry filled with jam and baked with poppy seed or curd paste.
Punschkrapfen is a traditional Austrian pastry. Also known as punschkrapferl, it is a celebration of old world Austrian culture and is an unofficial national symbol in the form of a pastry. Traditionally, punschkrapfen contains apricot jelly and a hearty chocolate nougat filling, then the entire pastry is soaked in rum or similar liqueur. The pastry chef then coats the dessert in a thin pink sugary glaze and cuts it into small squares. There is a saying in Vienna that punschkrapfen is a representation of the typical character of an Austrian: red on the outside, brown on the inside and always a little smashed.
The exact history of the punschkrapfen is at best. There are many legends about the origin of this sweet dessert, including rumors of its introduction to the Austrians after the second Turkish siege. Today tourists can find punschkrapfen in every pastry shop and on almost every menu in Austria. In Austrian family homes, there are variations of the recipe, each with its own unique twist on this classic confection.
Punschkrapfen is similar to petit fours, which are French pastries that resemble small cakes. These two desserts are so similar, in fact, that unless a person bites into a piece of punschkrapfen, it might be mistaken for a small four. A similar confection is a French fantasy, a small pastry made of cubed sponge cake and topped with a generous helping of buttercream. A pastry chef coats a French fantasy in the glaze just like punschkrapfen, so they look very similar externally to each other.
Buchteln is another type of Austrian pastry and is a sweet dumpling made with yeast dough. The cook prepares this dessert by filling it with jam just like punschkrapfen, but the cook bakes buchteln with poppy seed or curd paste to make the dessert stick together. Many Austrian desserts come with some kind of jam or custard, but punschkrapfen is perhaps the best known.
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