In addition to the much-beloved and ubiquitous apricot jam, another building block of the Viennese kitchen in marmalade form is Powidl: plum jam made from Zwetschgen or Italian prune plums. The name, as well as the preserve, came from Bohemia in the early nineteenth century, cookbook records indicate. For a jam it contains relatively little sugar -- a few tablespoons for several kilos of plums -- typically because Powidl is a way of using up a bounty of overripe plums harvested late in the season that, cooked slowly, give off a certain amount of natural sugar. Unlike other jams, Powidl also does not contain a setting agent like pectin. Recipes for making Powidl at home all contain a combination of three base ingredients: the plums, sugar (either white or brown), and alcohol (either rum or plum schnapps). Some recipes also contain cinnamon, though from my experience I would not say cinnamon is detectable upon trying Powidl.
I suppose one could argue this makes Powidl more of a compote than a jam but it is, more often than not, used like a jam: as a filling or a spread rather than a gloop served on the side of a dessert as one would find apple compote. (For that purpose, one would use something called Zwetschgenröster.) You'll find Powidl inside of Buchteln or Germknödeln, but also, a Powidltascherl. Powidltascherln are most often made from a potato dough: mashed potato combined with butter, flour, semolina, salt, and an egg yolk. Choux pastry, however, is an acceptable alternative. The dough is rolled out quite thinly and cut into circles. A teaspoon of Powidl is placed in the middle of each circle before the circle folded over on itself to create a small parcel. Whether made from potato dough or choux pastry, the Powidltascherln are cooked by boiling them in salted water like a dumpling, and, like a Marillenknödel, they are passed through toasted, buttered, and sweetened breadcrumbs once cooked and finished with a dusting of icing sugar.
