Certain desserts constitute restaurant staples in Vienna: Apfel- or Topfenstrudel served with custard or whipped cream; Topfenknödel with a plum compote; Palatschinken with apricot marmalade; and, Mohr im Hemd, an individually-steamed chocolate cake served with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, something which became popular due to its substance in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, linked to the Catholic convention of eating dessert for dinner on meatless fast days. Besides its magnificent appearance, the first thing that leaps out about Mohr im Hemd is the name. A Mohr im Hemd translates as a "moor in his shirt," a reference to the dessert's black-and-white appearance. The name seems to have been attached to the cake some twenty years after it first appeared in a cookbook, when Verdi's Othello had its first performances at the Staatsoper (the title character being the 'moor of Venice') in March 1888. The name still holds, believe it or not, though in the 2000s, the debate surrounding its appropriateness picked up steam, and on some restaurant menus, Mohr im Hemd is now called something like chocolate Gugelhupf or chocolate cake with cream.
You can find Mohr im Hemd already prepared in the freezer section of some supermarkets here, though making it at home is easy enough if you have the right-sized individual Gugelhupf pans (or something similar). Cream together butter and sugar, followed by egg yolks, and then add ground almonds and grated dark chocolate (and in some recipes, breadcrumbs). Into this base mixture fold egg whites that have been beaten to stiff peaks with some sugar. The batter is now ready to be poured into ramekins and then either cooked in a water bath on the stove top or steamed like, well, a steamed syrup sponge pudding or a Christmas pudding. As I say, Mohr im Hemd can be found on many coffeehouse and restaurant menus, though the Viennese food chronicler Sothany Kim who runs the viennaeats Instagram page recommends places such as Steman, Gasthaus am Spittelberg, or Gmoakeller. "It’s death on a plate and just fantastic," she says, "much better than Sachertorte."
