Austria is a place where there is sweet enjoyments, with a practically interesting assortment of cakes, baked goods and sweets. Throughout the hundreds of years, conventional heating in Austria has been impacted by Bohemian, Hungarian and Italian cooking, as well as by provincial rustic cooking, and these preparing customs are kept up right up 'til the present time both in the joints and cake shops, and likewise in Austrian homes. Austrian heating is renowned far and wide for its scrumptious gateaux and great baked goods, transforming sweet dreams into a reality.
Austria gained a fine reputation for its bakery at a very early stage. Austrian culture and folk history were influenced by Eastern European and Arab countries, while Turkey and France were also strongly reflected in its culture. The traditions of all these foreign cuisines have become evident in Austrian cooking, particularly in the cakes and pastries.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire once spread over a large part of Central Europe. Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia and parts of present Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Italy were part of the empire. In 1900, Vienna’s 2,25 million inhabitants made it the fifth-largest city in the world. At that time, its status as the Austrian capital meant that Vienna had access to a great variety of foods and an unbelievably diverse cuisine.
The art of bakery was held in such high esteem that a head pastry chef at the royal courts was treated with the same honour as a general. The first known recipe of a “Milchrahmstrudel” (sour cream strudel) was found in a handwritten cookbook in Vienna, dated 1696. Strudel was very likely to have been influenced by Turkish and Arabian bakery and reached its highest level of refinement in Budapest.
Recipes for a chocolate cake appeared early as the eighteen century. In 1832, Prince Wenzel von Metternich gave orders that his guests should be presented with a special cake. As the head chef had been taken ill, Franz Sacher, a sixteen-year=old apprentice, created the first “original” chocolate cake: the Sachertorte, which later became Europe’s most famous chocolate torte. This complicated and inspired creation, consisting of flavoured sponge layers sandwiched with a thin layer of apricot jam and covered by a shiny glace of rich, dark-chocolate, traditionally served with whipped cream, is now baked in professional Viennese kitchens and shipped all around the world.
In summary you can say: The culinary flavour of Austria is a gently flavour. It knows the fiery spices of Hungary and the elegance of French cuisine. It derives much of its strength from Moravia and much of its daring from Poland. It is a broad-minded flavour.