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.

This dessert 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

4 from 85 votes

Recipe by Nina Course: DessertCuisine: austrian

Servings

16

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

10

minutes

Calories

306

kcal

This 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.

Cook Mode

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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The post Austrian Curd Cheese Dumplings stuffed with strawberries and Nutella: Indulgent Homemade Desserts appeared first on Two Sisters Living Life.

Pretty apple shaped apple cinnamon hand pies -3 tips to incorporate butter into the flour without having a food processor.

Firstly for me is the dough as important as the filling. The pie dough has to be pliable and not too try because otherwise it’s so difficult to shape it. Secondly the taste needs to be subtly sweet and crisp and flaky. Otherwise the pie dough recipe is just no good. Here are 3 ways how you can incorporate your butter in to the flour without a food processor.

• If you have a pastry cutter just cut the cold butter into the flour until it looks like fine ground grain.
• Another great way to mix the butter into the flour ist to put the bowl with the flour mixture into your stand kitchen mixer with the whisk attached add the butter cubes and start to whisk slowly until everything looks like a fine pea sized mess.
• The messiest way to do this ist to pinch, rub, squeeze and crush the flour with the butter with your fingertips together until small pea sized lumps form . This will take you about 10 minutes.

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How to shape those apple cinnamon hand pies .

• First of all I cut the pie dough into 2 parts, one larger and one smaller part.
• Now I’m going to roll out both parts with a pin until 2mm (1/8inch) thick. Before rolling and shaping the larger disk for the last time use a embossed rolling pin and roll it carefully with enough pressure to see the pattern over it.
• After that I’m going to start out with the small dough disk and cut out 8 circles that are 2cm larger in diameter than the diameter of the apple halves.
• I’m cutting out 8 circles on the larger disk that are 4 cm larger in diameter than the apple.

Hold on we are almost done!

• Now take a small dough circle smear it with the cinnamon sugar butter but leaving out 1 cm.
• Place the hasselback cut apple half on the smeared dough circle brush cinnamon butter in the apple .
• Moisten the clean dough border with water.
• Finally pull the larger dough circle onto the apple and pinch the dough edges together.
• I trim the edges with a pastry wheel to make it look more pretty and even .
• Now I’m shaping the leaves , stems and blossom end and place them carefully onto the apple shaped hand pies. Moisten the decorating parts a little bit before sticking the m to the hand pies.
• Repeat this with all the other apple halves.
• When everything is done place the handles into the fridge for 30 minutes. The decoration and patterns shaped into the dough need to be cold to stay.
• Tadaa ! Thats it.

Here is a little video for you on how to make these hand pies.

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Some thoughts and advices .

• These hand pies are best enjoyed with some creamy vanilla ice cream or half beaten lightly sweetened cream (add a sip of rum and vanilla sugar to the cream and make it a more adult thing ).
• If you don’t like the peel on the apples, no problem. Just peel the apples before you half, core and hasselback them.
• Before I brush the cinnamon butter on the smaller dough disk I sprinkle some flour over it. This way the juices of the apple and the butter thicken a little bit while baking. So good.
• You can freeze the baked apple hand pies for later. Just wrap them in cling film and put them into the freezer for up to 2 months. When thawed just put them for 10 minutes into the oven at 180C fan(360F) to crisp up.

I hope you make this delicious fall recipe really soon because I promise you it won’t be the last time you’ll make it.

Lastly if you make these pretty apple shaped cinnamon apple hand pies, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from yo guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag us on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite .

Cinnamon hugs Nina

If you love apples here are some more apple recipes for you:

• Christmassy sourdough baked apple cake
• Apple galette with honey whiskey frangipane
• Antonias favorite apple pie
• Apple cinnamon crumble muffin
• Fancy pork tenderloin in puff pastry with caramelized apples and onions
• Autumnly apple cider and cheese soup with pretzel chips

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Pretty Cinnamon Apple Hand Pies

4 from 11 votes

Recipe by Nina Course: brunch, DessertCuisine: American, austrian

Servings

8

hand pies

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

45

minutes

Calorieskcal

Total time

2

hours 

15

minutes

We can't celebrate fall without a show stopper apple recipe. This is an easy recipe for beautiful apple shaped cinnamon apple hand pies . They are easy to make and go so well with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream.

Cook Mode

Keep the screen of your device on

Ingredients

• Dough

• 220 g 220 unsalted butter cut into small cubes

• 440 g 440 flour

• 1 tsp 1 salt

• 2 2 eggs large

• cold water if needed

• 2 tbsp 2 sugar

• Filling

• 4 4 apples small to medium sized, cut in half, cored

• 150 g 150 butter room temperature

• 150 g 150 brown sugar

• 1 tbsp 1 cinnamon

• 1/4 tsp 1/4 cardamom optional

• 1/4 tsp 1/4 cloves grounded, optional

• Egg wash

• 1 1 egg

• 2 tbsp 2 milk

Directions

• Dough
• In a medium sized bowl mix together flour, salt and sugar.
• Add the cold butter cubes and incoporate them into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter, food processor or, in rubbing the flour mixture into the butter until everything is very fine in size.
• Add the eggs and knead the dough until everything comes together to pliable dough. Don't knead the dough to long just let it come together.
• Attention: if the dough seems to dry and tense add some water. 1tbsp at the time. Don't add to much.
• Wrap the dough into plastic wrap (cling film) and put it into the fridge for one hour.
• Filling
• Mix together butter, sugar and the spices. Either with a spoon or an electric mixer.
• Now take the halved and cored apples and slice every half length wise about every 2mm(1/8 inch) . But don't cut it the whole way trough. The apple half should stay intact and not cut apart. It's like making hasselback apples instead of hasselback potatoes
• Put everything together
• Take the pie dough out of the fridge, cut it in half and roll every half out about 0,5cm (1/4 inch) thick.
• Optional: Take one rolled out pie halve and roll over it with an embossed rolling pin.
• Now cut out 8 circles that are about 2cm larger in diameter than your apple half and 8 circles that are 4cm in diameter large than your apple halves.
• Take the smaller dough circles and coat them with the cinnamon sugar butter filling, but leave out the1 cm of the border.

  • 

• Place the apple halves onto the smeared dough circles and coat the rest of the apple with the cinnamon butter.

  • 

• Now moisten the edges of the dough circles and put the larger circles on top. Pinch the edges together. Now repeat that process with all the other apple halves.

  • 

• With the rest of the dough form leaves and stems and decorate the apple shaped hand pies with them.

  • 

• Put the hand pies back into the fridge for 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) fan.
• Place the hand pies on a baking sheet covered with a baking paper, brush them with egg wash (egg and 2 tbsp milk mixed together)and bake for 45-60 minutes.
• Leave them to cool on a rack.
• These are best enjoyed still warm, with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and a scoop of ice cream.

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The post Pretty apple shaped apple cinnamon hand pies appeared first on Two Sisters Living Life.