This is one of the best Austrian cuisine desserts ever! “Topfenknödel” – Austrian curd cheese dumplings are fluffy, soft, fruity, and creamy. The dumplings are filled with a medium-sized Strawberry and Nutella and are covered in caramelized buttery bread crumbs. They can be prepared in advance, and the curd cheese can be replaced with cream cheese. This is the perfect strawberry recipe to start the spring/ summer season. These cheese dumplings can be enjoyed as a vegetarian sweet main dish or as a dessert. One of my favorite Austrian recipes. ❤️
What are strawberry curd cheese dumplings?
Austrian cheese dumplings with breadcrumb coating are a traditional Austrian sweet recipe popular during strawberry and stone fruit season. These dumplings are low in sugar but still sweet because of the sweetness of the ripe strawberries and the added teaspoon of Nutella. We Austrians enjoy this deliciousness for dessert or lunch. I love to enjoy those dumplings for lunch on a Friday or as a dessert on the weekends, served with a scoop of ice cream and strawberry compote. We Austrians have always had a sweet tooth and developed a category only for sweet main dishes.
The dough is soft and more like a batter and contains only 5 ingredients .The stuffing of the curd cheese dumplings varies and depends mostly on what’s in season. The dumplings get cooked in salted water and afterwards coated with bread crumbs which get browned and caramelized in sugar and butter.
The origin of curd cheese dumplings.
The recipe originates from the Bohemian Empire, which was part of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and is today the Czech Republic. It’s a well-loved traditional dish popular in Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria. Every nation claims this dish as its own, of course, and therefore, the recipe varies in its ingredients, fillings, and preparation.
While these dumplings get cooked in salt water in most Eastern European countries, these dumplings get baked in Germany.
What is curd cheese?
Curd cheese is a fresh cheese made from skim milk. It has a starter added to the curdle; the milk is very lightly colored and is soft and spreadable. It has a slightly sour tang to the taste and is not aged at all.
Austrian quark cheese tends to contain less fat than cottage cheese. It is sometimes called medium-fat soft cheese.
Substitutions for curd cheese.
If curd cheese isn’t available where you live, here are some options you can use instead of curd cheese:
- Quark trained with a cheesecloth; otherwise, it’s too wet.
- Farmer’s cheese
- Ricotta
- Cream cheese
- dry-curd cottage cheese
- cottage cheese pressed through a sieve
The Ingredients:
- Butter: Unsalted butter is what we use
- Salt: a pinch of salt for seasoning
- Curd cheese
- eggs
- flour
- Strawberries
- Nutella
- bread crumbs
- sugar
- More Butter
What to serve with strawberry curd cheese dumplings.
Firstly, these dumplings coated in caramelized bread crumbs are delicious as they are. Just served warm with some extra bread crumbs and a dust of powdered sugar, the following sides are also excellent choices as well 😊.
- Vanilla ice cream is always a great addition to any warm-served dessert.
- Apple sauce is a classic, and you can’t go wrong with it.
- Strawberry compote is a great side as well. I even have a great recipe on my blog.😉
- Homemade fruit sauces are a great fit as well for this Austrian dessert.
Variations of fillings:
I’m filling these curd cheese dumplings with whatever fruits are in season.
- Apricots: use small apricot. Get rid of the pit and put a sugar cube into the apricot instead.
- Plums: it’s the same for plums. Remove the pit and put a sugar cube into its middle instead. If you don’t have sugar cubes, fill it with 1/2 tsp sugar.
- Berries: different berries or a mix of other berries are great filling. I like to sprinkle them with vanilla sugar.
- Nougat filling tastes so good!
- Any chocolate tastes excellent, as well.
- A combination of white chocolate and raspberries makes for a heavenly, delicious filling.
What’s essential when making these strawberry curd cheese dumplings?
“Homemade Austrian curd cheese dumplings step by step”
- The dough is very soft and sticky. The best way to make the dough pliable is to chill it for 2 hours.
- While the dough is chilling, I’m dropping teaspoon-sized amounts of Nutella on a baking sheet and freeze them. This way, it’s easier to fill the dumplings.
- Dust your kitchen surface and rolling pin enough before rolling out the dough.
- Don’t forget to dust your hands. This prevents the dough from sticking too much to your hands.
- Cut the dough into squares, transfer a square into your hand put a nutella drop into the middle, and small strawberry.
- Afterward, I close the dough around the filling, pinch the openings together with my fingers, and then roll it into a ball.
Here are some more tips for this authentic Austrian curd cheese dumpling recipe.
- The thickness of the dough will prevent it from tearing when closing it around the filling.
- I cook the dumplings for about 10 minutes in salted water. The water should gently bubble.
- Dumplings are ready when rising to the surface.
- Immediately coat the dumplings with the caramelized bread crumbs after cooking.
Can these Austrian curd cheese dumplings be prepared in advance ?
Austrian sweet cheese dumplings can easily be prepared up to 2 days in advance. Just follow the recipe until the dumplings are stuffed and rolled into balls. Sprinkle them with some flour, put them on a tray, cover them with cling fling or aluminum foil, and keep them in the fridge for up to 2 days.
How to store leftover dumplings.
In case you have some left over dumplings put them into an airtight container and keep them in the fridge for up to 2 days.
Reheat them in a pan with the leftover caramelized bread crumbs over medium heat for about 5-7 minutes.
Finally, if you tried this easy strawberry recipe for “Erdbeer Topfenknödel”, aka Strawberry curd cheese dumplings, and found the recipe and post helpful, please give it a rating and leave me a kind comment. Nothing makes me more happy than hearing from you, preparing some Traditional Austrian food 😊. And let’s not forget it’s one of my favorite Austrian recipes as well 😉.
– Nina <3
If you’d like to stay up in the loop follow me on Instagram. 😊❤️
Easy Strawberry curd cheese dumplings – best Austrian dessert
Course: DessertCuisine: austrian16
20
minutes10
minutes306
kcalThis is a one of the best Austrian desserts ever! "Topfenknödel" – strawberry curd cheese dumplings fluffy, soft, fruity and have a creamy consistency . The dumplings are filled with a medium sized Strawberry and Nutella and are covered in caramelized buttery bread crumbs.
Keep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
- Dumplings dough
160 g 160 butter cut into small cubes
2 2 eggs
500 g 500 curd cheese or any substitution found in the blog post
1 tbsp 1 white sugar
1 pinch 1 salt
tsp zest of 1 lemon
300 g 300 all purpose flour
- Filling
16 16 strawberries medium sized, cut of a little bit of the and the greens.
1 tbsp 1 vanilla sugar
100 g 100 Nutella or any other nut cream you prefer
- Buttery caramelized bread crumbs
120 g 120 butter
80 g 80 white sugar
80 g 80 bread crumbs made of white bread
Directions
- Dumplings dough
- Start with mixing together the butter eggs and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached for 2-3 minutes.
- Add all other ingredients and mix until it forms a dough.
- Wrap the dough into plastic wrap and chill the dough for 2 hours.
- Filling
- On a baking paper drop teaspoon sized Nutella creme on a baking paper and freeze until you start with the filling.
- Use medium sized strawberries for the filling. If there are only large ones available cut into thump sized pieces . Mix the strawberries with the vanilla sugar and set aside.
- After the dough is cold and chilled sprinkle your working surface and your rolling pin with enough flour other wise the dough will be too sticky .
- Roll out the dough until it's 1cm thick (0,4 inch)
- Dust the dough surface and cut into 10cmx10cm quarters (3 1/2 inch x 3 1/2 inch)
- With the help of a spatula take one dough square into your dusted hands.
- Put a Nutella drop and a strawberry on top and close the dough around it. Everything should be covered by the dough.
- Pinch the seams together . Make sure the dough ball isn't open anywhere.
- Roll the dough into a ball . But be carefully.
- Put the dumpling on a flour dusted tray and repeat with the other dough squares.
- Cooking the dumplings
- Fill a medium sized heavy bottom pot with water and heat heat until it cooks.
- Add 1 teaspoon of salt and reduce heat until its a gentle bubbling.
- Put the dumplings into the bubbling water but make sure that there is still enough space between the dumplings.
- Let the dumplings cook for about 10 to 15 minutes or until the dumplings rise to the surface .
- When the dumplings are done, transfer them one at a time with a skimmer into the bread crumbs and coat every dumpling on all sides .
- Repeat with the rest of the curd cheese dumplings.
- Serve warm and with a dust of sugar. Enjoy!
- Buttery caramelized bread crumbs
- Heat a medium sized pan on medium high heat and let the butter melt.
- When the butter is melted reduce the heat to medium and add the sugar. Let everything caramelize for 1-2 minutes. But make sure it doesn't get burnt.
- At last add the bread crumbs. Mix everything together and let the bread crumbs get golden brown before switching off the heat.
Nutrition Facts
- Calories: 306kcal
- Carbohydrates: 30g
- Protein: 8g
- Fat: 17g
- Saturated Fat: 11g
- Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g
- Monounsaturated Fat: 4g
- Trans Fat: 1g
- Cholesterol: 59mg
- Sodium: 289mg
- Potassium: 112mg
- Fiber: 1g
- Sugar: 12g
- Vitamin A: 481IU
- Vitamin C: 7mg
- Calcium: 47mg
- Iron: 2mg
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