Pakistan is the world’s largest producer of poppy seeds, but Austrians produce about 1,000 metric tons each year. The technical term is the whole Lotta Poppy seed. Poppy seeds emerge in Austrian baking – sprinkle the top of the rolls, sprinkle over butter-smoked dumplings, and inside the cake.
Recently, the EU has adopted a new menu label guide that allows diners to understand whether their choice contains dairy, nuts, wheat – most foods that emit allergies and intolerants. Tag guide includes currently selected villain gluten.
It’s not as bad as your idea of Austrian cake landscape. Many cakes are made with a nut flour base. (If that’s your allergy, there’s always a cheesecake.) A good mohntorte – Poppy Seed Cake is made with poppy seeds. There is no flour in the basic Mohntorte (bakers use to dust the pan, which is optional), so it is a friendly option for those with real gluten allergy. The cake has a surprisingly chocolatey flavor, with no chocolate in it – maybe all the eggs. Some classic recipes have up to nine eggs, and some use only egg yolks. Gluten may go out, but cholesterol has entered.
Waldviertel Poppy Field By Welleschik via Wikimedia (Creative Sharing)
Mohntorte originated in Waldviertel, which is also the place where most poppy seed crops in Austria. It is located on the top of Austria and borders the Czech Republic, where they also like to use a lot of poppy seeds in desserts.
Poppy seeds are also used as fillings for many other cakes and pastries. The seeds are grated with honey and boiled with milk, and they make a sticky sweet paste used in the sticky coffee cake, which in Harmentaschen is a treat for the Jewish holiday in Purim.
Poppy seed paste is also used in Fachertorte, which is the first three layers of stupidity of the cake. The lower layer is a yellow cake, boiled in honey and milk, the middle layer is poppy seed paste, and the top layer is fried with butter and apple schnapps. The whole thing is wrapped in a skin-like brioche. This is the kind of cake you want to eat alone, in a quiet place so you can lie down and smoke, but it’s also great to eat in the top rotunda of the Museum of Art History in Vienna. Settings can only be eliminated by things on the board.
It may be best to visit the art gallery before indulging, because after you lick the last crumb behind the fork, the baroque ladies’ baroque paintings of ladies are thighs or huge thighs or huge thighs or huge hero shields compared to the cakes you consume recently.
It’s all about orders, art, and then cakes, are they really not the same?
Top image: Queenstoric Museum, interior, Vienna via Wikimedia (Creative Sharing)
