Salzburger Nockerln

Three peaks, their tops dusted with white powdered sugar, are carried to the table while still puffed up. Salzburger Nockerln is a Salzburg sweet in which egg foam is baked in its serving dish. When the thin, golden surface is broken, a soft, airy interior appears. Today’s shape resembles snowy mountains. Before it took this form, other Nockerl with the same place name were boiled or cooked in butter and turned.

Nockerln served at the Hotel Elefant in Salzburg, 2017. Photo: Jeuwre／CC BY-SA 4.0.

Three peaks made from egg foam and a little flour

The main ingredients are eggs, sugar and a small amount of wheat flour. The yolks and whites are separated. The whites are whipped with sugar, the yolks are added, and the flour is sifted in. It is important to bring everything together into a smooth, creamy batter without deflating the foam. Unlike sweets made by steaming a milk-rich liquid until it sets, Nockerln rise high because the air held in the eggs is not lost during baking.

In Salzburg, one method combines 3 eggs with 10 grams of flour. Other methods use more whites than yolks and add rum or vanilla. All of them keep the flour to a small amount and bake the egg foam without deflating it, so the center stays light.

Baked in a warmed dish and served at once

The dish is buttered and warmed in advance. Once the batter is ready, large portions are scooped up with a scraper or spoon and arranged as three large mounds with pointed tips. They are not baked one at a time and stacked afterward. Because they become neighboring peaks in the same dish, the quick placement of the soft batter determines the final shape.

When the batter is baked briefly in the oven, the gas inside the foam expands and the surface browns. As soon as it is baked, it is dusted with powdered sugar and served immediately. As it cools, the volume of gas decreases and the batter sinks, so unlike a cake made in advance, this sweet cannot be kept waiting for long. Diners enjoy its light texture while it is still risen high in the dish.

In addition to powdered sugar, jam or vanilla sauce is sometimes served alongside. When fruit tartness is paired with the fluffy egg batter, the tartness brings out the mild sweetness. A large dish is often shared among several people after a meal, so everyone can enjoy the warmth and fluffy texture of the freshly baked sweet. When the thin baked surface is broken, a gentle egg aroma rises from inside the three peaks.

Some versions add dairy fat to the bottom of the dish. In the method taught by Naomi Nakahama on a 2022 cooking program, fresh cream and butter are melted in a gratin dish before the foam batter is placed on top. During baking, the dairy fat soaks into the lower part, giving it a different texture from the light upper part. The cranberries served alongside are cooked with sugar so that their skins keep their texture.

The legend that Salome Alt made it for her family

The city also has a story that links the origin to Archbishop Wolf Dietrich and his partner Salome Alt. According to this story, Salome made the sweet in the kitchen of the Mirabell residence for the two of them and their children. Austria’s inventory of traditional foods also mentions this legend, but it is not known when this sweet actually came into being.

The name Nockerl is used not only for sweet desserts but also for foods such as dumplings added to soup. Some Salzburg Nockerl recorded in old cookbooks differ from today’s sweet, made by baking peaks of egg white in the oven, in both ingredients and cooking method.

A history of boiled choux pastry and baked foam batter

Austria’s inventory of traditional foods cites Hagger’s 1718 “Salzburg Cookbook” as the first appearance. This is disputed by research from food-culture historian Lothar Kolmer and others, who did not find the name in that book. The same research found “Salzburger Nocken” in the third edition (1816) of Maria Anna Neudecker’s “The Bavarian Cook in Bohemia.” However, this is a dish in which small scoops of choux pastry are simmered in hot cream. It differs from today’s method of baking peaks of egg white in the oven in both the handling of ingredients and the use of heat.

The history of recipes (the proportions of ingredients and the method) that use foam batter leads back to an 1858 formula from Munich by Johann Rottenhöfer, a cook at the Bavarian court. It was a light batter made with eggs, but more butter was used at the time than today. Neudecker’s dish of boiled choux pastry and Rottenhöfer’s sweet of baked egg foam were both handed down under the same place name. Mid-19th-century cookbooks list Nocken and Nockerl together, and later the latter, which denotes a small lump, became the dominant name. While the name stayed the same, two different methods coexisted: a dish of small scoops of dough simmered in liquid, and a sweet made by baking whipped batter.

The three peaks are compared to the mountains surrounding the city, but accounts differ on which three mountains they represent. Marie von Rokitansky’s 1897 cookbook includes a method in which pyramid-shaped portions of batter are cooked in clarified butter and turned during cooking.

Eventually, the simpler method of baking in the oven spread. The sweet was even mentioned in a song in the 1938 operetta “Saison in Salzburg,” and it became known as a soft, sweet specialty. It is a sweet that has kept its old name while its tools and use of heat have changed.

Glossary