Kaiserschmarrn

Kaiserschmarrn

Kaiserschmarrn with apple sauce
Type	Pancake
Place of origin	Austria-Hungary
Main ingredients	Flour, eggs, sugar, milk, butter

Kaiserschmarrn or Kaiserschmarren (Emperor's Mess) is a shredded pancake, which has its name from the Austrian emperor (Kaiser) Franz Joseph I, who was very fond of this kind of fluffy shredded pancake.

Kaiserschmarrn is a popular meal or dessert in Austria, South Germany, and many former parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, e.g. Hungary, Slovenia, and northern Croatia, which usually use the name as a loan word or translations of it. In Slovenia, it is called "cesarski praženec" or "šmorn". Its Hungarian name is "császármorzsa"; its Czech name is "(Císařský) trhanec" or "kajzršmorn".

The name Kaiserschmarren is a compound of the words Kaiser (emperor) and Schmarren (a scrambled or shredded dish). Schmarren is also a colloquialism used in Austrian and Bavarian to mean trifle, mishmash, mess, rubbish, or nonsense. The word "Schmarren" is related to scharren (to scrape) and schmieren (to smear).

Kaiserschmarren is a light, caramelized pancake made from a sweet batter using flour, eggs, sugar, salt, and milk, baked in butter. Kaiserschmarren can be prepared in different ways. When making Kaiserschmarren the egg whites are usually separated from the yolk and beaten until stiff; then the flour and the yolks are mixed with sugar, and the other ingredients are added, including: nuts, cherries, plums, apple jam, or small pieces of apple, or caramelized raisins and slivered almonds. The last mentioned ingredients (nuts, cherries, plums, apple jam, or small pieces of apple, or caramelized raisins and chopped almonds) aren't in the original recipe and just additions made by some cooks based on their personal preferences. In the original recipe there are only raisins (before cooking they are soaked in rum).