Recipe Wachau Apricot Dumplings

Oil cakes have a long tradition especially in Mediterranean countries where olive oil is abundant. In Austria sunflower or rape oil is used instead and candied bitter orange peel, aranzini, and pine kernels are also added.

The Dutch love cookies, cakes, pastries, anything savory with cheese, or sweet with chocolate. And they adore whipped cream. It is therefore not surprising that this sweet pastry is one of the country’s favorites. It’s like a chocolate éclair, but bigger, fluffier, with better chocolate and much more cream. These Bossche goodies have made the city of Hertogenbosch famous and are the number one pastries to serve with fork and knife and a handful of napkins.

The most typical Slovak national food is Bryndzové Halušky with bacon. This is made from potato dough mixed with a special kind of sheep cheese – „bryndza“ that tastes best in the so called cottages of shepherds or mountain chalets. The dish is topped by fried bacon lardons and some of the fat. Bryndzové halušky is best eaten with buttermilk or acidified milk. Slovakia can boast a remarkable world curiosity. Every year, in the mountain village of Turecká at the foot of the Veľká Fatra mountains, lovers of bryndzové halušky meet at the European championship for cooking and consuming of this dish.

The Austrians are convinced that the word “Gugelhupf” origins in the Middle High German “gugele” (monk’s hood) and “hopf” (yeast). It might also come from the Alsace “Kouglhof”, though, a sweet dish which, according to legend, the Three Wise Men carried with them.