And now, for my next trick: Germknödel! I’ve had quite a bit of interest in these babies since I tweeted about making them, and rightly so; they’re rather special and I’ve never seen them outside Austria. Oh, and for those of you who’ve been moaning I make stuff you can’t pronounce, it’s gare-m-kner-dil.
Here, they’re most frequently eaten for lunch to fortify oneself during a long day of skiing but I have no such qualms – I’ll happily scarf one down on Sunday for afternoon tea even if the most taxing thing I’ve done all day is make cheese toasties for breakfast.
When you cut through the pillow soft, buttery yeast dough, the Powidl within and the topping of poppy seeds, icing sugar and butter merge into a spicy, heavenly sauce which you proceed to mop up and shovel into your waiting mouth with great speed, lest someone ask you if they can have a bite (they can’t).
Sometimes I delight in making things that turn out just like a bought one (see: bagels, English muffins). It might seem pointless to some (I did get a few blank looks when I announced to friends I was making Germknödel since Austrians usually buy them frozen and you can’t tell the difference) but I get a real sense of achievement from recreating stuff that you normally buy. Ahem, we all have to get our kicks somewhere, right?
Also, since I am a horrendously bad skier and therefore the only adult in a sea of tiny babies on the easy slope, I have to bolster my self-esteem somehow. I have chosen, inexplicably perhaps, to be able to sit amongst my friends when we adjourn for lunch – they having descended from the giddy heights of the black runs – and salvage the bit of pride that remains mine after spending most of the day with my bum in contact with snow by croaking through a mouthful of Germknödel “I’ve made these myself, you know.”
Can you ski?
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Oh. how delicious. The “Gemuetlichkeit” and food you get an Austrian Skihuette is totally missing here in the ski areas in Colorado. I LOVED to eat a Germknoedel after a hard day of skiing together with a Jagertee. Well. now I have the recipe to make my own. Thanks for sharing!!
You can pretend you’re here ;P
These look so doughy and gorgeous! You’re right–I bet they would be delicious with Nutella, too!
Am ploughing through these as fast as possible so I can do nutella ones!
Golly, these look nice and involved, I don’t ski well at all (I am very bad, in fact) but I like it, and then come home to the Chalet (hahahaha) in the evening to find you there waiting for me with these out of the oven and a hot chocolate too (if I was single and male I would propose to you, lovely baker to hungry skiers, but the only thing I can do is not show this post to my husband or he can get some ideas…).
Now, this looks familiar! As I already told you, my mother makes something similar, but with the potato dough, similar to gnocchi. How I miss those! Husband is allergic to all the fruit from the Rose family (which is almost everything), and I refrain from making meine knoedeln:(
And I used to ski in my previous life. I have put the skiis on only one time on the U.S. soil, when I accompanied my daughter and her snowboarding club. I miss skiing, too:(
See what you have accomplished? No, skiing, no knoedeln for me:( I am going to go and pout now.
BTW, your dumplings look divine and I completely understand why you want to make certain dishes at home, rather then buying them.
This looks FANTASTIC. I can’t wait to try these, and because I’m still scared of jam-production, you bet they’ll be filled with Nutella (I have two jars in the cupboard). Oh, and nice hands. If it seems creepy that I say that, it’s only because I have unattractive hands and therefore like to point out nice ones when I see them :)
Thanks *^_^* Not creepy! I’m charmed.
Yay! :)
These have been on my must make list for too long and now I feel inspired to take the plunge, although they might have to wait till December as I’m off to the UK in 10 days and have a lot to finish. Your Knödel look so perfect, much better than any frozen ones. I have never skied and feel too scared to start, mainly because as a freelancer I tell myself that if I break a leg, I’d lose too much money off work. Optimistic eh?
I can just smell them, delicious and good on you for making your own! I have just made baked jam doughnuts, trying to be healthy ha, I suppose intros quite similar to these babies so not so strange after all to bake them. I prefer snowboarding, only one board to think about, I hate the idea of trying to control 2 skis and 2 sticks so never even attempted it. I learnt to snowboard in Switzerland and Austria, now we go to Ruapehu!
Excellent. Now I can make my favourite skiing snack while shivering away in cold damp London. If it has the same effect on the city as it did on me when i skied,it should bring warmth and sunshine…
OMG these look SOOOO yummy! But I foresee many a poppyseed getting stucked in my teeth hehehe.. and do I see? I FLY down the hill! Not necessarily on my skis though.
These look awesome. I’m not a big skiier, but I’s come along just for one of these! And thanks for the phoenetic spelling!
I MUST NOT make these. when regarding homemade yeast bread, i have an eating disorder. it’s impossible to stop eating until there is no more…
can’t claim to be a real skiier, too but what i can say from observing swiss people with alpine huts – they would definitely go for a cheese fondue rather than a yeast dough :=)
these look so homey and delish. I like anything doughy and that’s stuffed (I think that’s cause I’m Asian and love all things pau/manju/dangos/daifuku). Beautiful!
I now know at least one of the things I must try when I’m there. They kind of remind me of those steamed sesame seed balls, filled with red bean paste that you get with dim sum… except plum and poppy seeds. I wanna pour heavy cream or condensed milk over mine, but I’ve also never had it, so that may ruin it? Although, can sweetened, condensed milk ruin anything? Maybe tradition. Anyway, coming from a stubborn, non-baker, I love ‘em. Maybe I’ll have better luck steaming instead of baking….
P.s. You should do a post on Wiener schnitzel. I know. I know. Blech. I am just getting obsessed with it in anticipation of our vacay…
A good Wiener schnitzel is a beautiful thing, remiss of me not to have made it on the blog.
I bet your homemade version is fantastic! Sounds like a lovely treat. No, I can’t ski. I’d be on the baby slopes forever if I even tried!
Nice One Sasa :) I’d not really heard of them before, but I like the idea of scoffing one or two down after a hard day on the slopes (or a nice toasty or too).
Those things look so weird but I’ve had them and they are extremely tasty and addictive!
Oh holy YUM! I love love Germknödel – it’s one of the things I truly love about living in Germany. My mother in law makes a killer one with plum preserve! But I like Nutella!
I’ve never skiied before- only water-skiied. But I got up on my first try, so maybe I have a knack for it- who knows! I think I would definitely try my hand at skiing, though, if there were some of those waiting for me at the bottom of the hill!
This has got to be one of the most exciting recipes I’ve EVER seen. It contains some of my favourite things: kneading dough, poppyseeds, steaming, extra melted butter :D
Those look REALLY tasty.
I love skiing and snow sports but I’m not much of a skiier. Put me on a snowboard though and I’m oh so happy.
Almost time for the resorts around here to open up…
Dude these look awesome! I love the fact that I can incorporate Nutella in to it, lol. Will have to try this out soon, though I would never be able to pronounce it!
p.s. I’m a lousy skier, instead of “skiing” down the slope, I “fall” all the way down the slope…. though having said that I haven’t skied in AGES. Time to schedule a ski trip perhaps? Maybe time has made me a better skier… :P
Perhaps I will give skiing a try some day, for now I love hearing my friends talk about it!
And wow, these Germknödel look adorable – and very, very delicious. I’ve had to pull my head back to type this comment to you (I temporarily forgot that we can’t eat things on screens… damn!)
I love these! I see them sometimes at the fairs in Berlin, but they’re not very good. I did have an amazing one (all filled with plum jam and all) atop a cafe in the summit of a mountain in the Harz, accompanied by Schwarzbier. It’s something I’ve been trying to recreate, but I only come across lesser Germknödel. It never occured to me to make them. And thanks for the step-by-step. Lovely pics.
these look perfect little packages don’t they? I can’t make rich dough like this for the family with milk. They look very neat. I’m with you on the chocolate, I sometimes put dark slabs of choc inside a slice of my bread!
Last night I made bread buns stuffed with mince beef for the purpose of my middle daughter’s pack lunch and they proved to be so popular with husband he stole most of them today so have none left!
It occurred to me that we should make these bread buns type of stuff more often as it’s such useful thing to snack on and with the one I did it can be dairy/egg free and so much easier to work with than pastry!
hello sasa! i’m in awe of anyone who can make bread, haven’t had much success with breadmaking, haha. thanks for stopping by my blog :) and glad to finally ‘meet’ you, we must scold the others for not introducing us earlier! :)
Oh my goodness, this is an intimidating recipe. But looks delicious! Love your blog!!
thanks for sharing. looks good!
Does anyone know where you can purchase Germknodels in the US, frozen and have them shipped here in the States?
I can’t wait to make these. They are my most vivid memory from a couple short Austrian ski vacations when I was a teen.
Do you steam them on their papers and just peel it off to serve?
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