I was recently asked to try out and photograph a recipe from an Austro-Hungarian Cookbook for Jewish Renaissance Magazine and I thought I’d share it with you.

With some of my own roots coming from a similar area I noticed one receipe that reminded me of the plum traybake that my gran makes and I have featured here before. It’s similar in a way that it has a meringue-like topping but the pastry here is a lot thicker and richer.

It’s not that much of a looker to be honest but my office colleagues gave the taste high marks which make up for it, so I think I may make it again some time.

Receipe taken from Tomi Komoly’s ‘My Granny’s Gift’ book, where it’s called ‘Ladie’s Whim’ ( I have no idea why and think Austro-Hungarian-Cherry-Traybake might be a bit more descriptive, so I am going with that)

Ingredients

For the pastry:

• 220g plain flour
• 150g butter
• 70g caster sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1tsp vanilla sugar or a few drops of vanilla essence

For the filling:

• 500g of fresh or preserved ‘sharp’ fruit such as raspberries or Morello cherries (I went with preserved sour cherries)
• 120g icing or caster sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 150g of finely chopped walnuts

Preparation:

Mix the pastry ingredients by hand, roll out into a thin layer (say 4-5mm) and place into a baking tin.

Alternatively, choose a baking tin of about 30 x 18 cm or 25 cm diameter round, and pat the pastry into it evenly.
Bake for about 25minutes or until just beginning to brown on gas no.3 (160 C).

Place the fruit on top evenly. Beat the egg whites with the sugar (adding the sugar very gradually) until firm, add the chocolate slowly, and finally blend in the walnuts.

Spread this mix on top of the fruit, and bake for a further 30 minutes on gas no.2 or until the meringue has set.