It was around this time last year, unsurprisingly, that I began to take you through Vienna's sweet seasonal delights -- in particular, its Weihnachtskekse or Christmas cookies: Zimtsterne and Kokosbusserln, Vanillekipferln and Linzer Augen. As you may recall, the tradition of giving out an melange of tiny cookies at Christmastime was born in Europe's monasteries in the Middle Ages, when monks would bake cookies to mark Jesus' birth, a ritual whose origin coincided with the introduction of exotic spices like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and cardamom to the European mainland, flavours now strongly associated with the holiday season by way of Lebkuchen and Spekulatius biscuits (both of which I will come to before the season is out). In Vienna, Christmas cookies exploded in popularity during the Biedermeier period in the mid-nineteenth century, and then again, during the Belle Époque.
The subject of this week's post is the Husarenkrapferl, a small jam-filled cookie whose appearance is remarkably similar to that of an American jam thumbprint cookie or the Swedish hallongrotta. Husaren translates as hussars, the class of light cavalrymen distinguished by their colourful appearance and daring-do, while Krapferl refers to the cookie's round shape, diminutive form, and jam filling akin to a Krapfen. The cookie element of the Husarenkrapferl brings to mind the dough used to make Vanillekipferl, albeit with a different ratio of flour to ground nuts. Husarenkrapferln are predominately made from flour, to which ground almonds, walnuts, or hazelnuts, sugar, vanilla, and perhaps lemon peel are added. Butter is cut into the flour, followed by egg yolks, providing the moisture to form the dough. The dough is divided into little half-ounce pieces, rolled into balls, placed on baking sheets, and then indented to make a space for the jam, usually apricot. After 17 minutes in a 350 F oven, you have batches of Husarenkrapferln ready to give out to family and friends.
