Of listing the world's desserts made from leftover bread, there is no end. From England, bread and butter pudding and queen of puddings, among others; from Mexico, capirotada, scented with cinnamon and dark piloncillo; from France, pain perdu or, by its common name, French toast, a good example of which is often hard to find, which makes me believe there isn't one at all. The Austrian take on this theme, which is to say, stale bread cooked in a sweet and often creamy liquor in order to reconstitute it and make it edible once more, comes in the guise of Scheiterhaufen, also known by its Czech name Žemlovka (and here we return to the theme of open borders) or in southwest Germany as Ofenschulper. (The Hungarian dish máglyarakás is also very much Scheiterhaufen by another name.) On the subject of names, a 'Scheit' is a piece of wood and a 'Scheiterhaufen' a pyre, bonfire, or similar, for to burn someone at the stake is to burn someone 'auf dem Scheiterhaufen,' and the layering of bread fragments in this dessert is said to resemble the arrangement of wood upon a bonfire, hence, Scheiterhaufen.
Here, either old Semmeln or brioche rolls or Kipferln (though technically, were you to use Kipferln, it would be Kipferlkoch and not Scheiterhaufen but that's by the by) are brought back to life with a custard made from milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla for that very particular nursery days taste that these bread puddings always have, and into this plumped-up old bread is mixed sliced apple or pears and perhaps cinnamon, almonds, or raisins depending on taste. The assembled pudding is then baked until golden and at this point you have the basic version of Scheiterhaufen, rather dense and compact together akin to American bread pudding, as the above photo shows. The augmented version of Scheiterhaufen, however, is topped with meringue (what is one going to do with all those leftover whites from the custard-making process, after all?) and baked a second time to burnish and bronze what was once snow white. The taller the meringue, the most magnificent the Scheiterhaufen, and in Vienna, the towering example comes from Cafe Diglas in the Wollzeile.
"Strudel, Sugar and Schlag" will return on November 4.
