What if Austria was located in the Caribbean? Perhaps, it could be a nice tropical island. Well, obviously you wouldn’t plan your ski holiday there. Apart from winter sports and from a more culinary viewpoint, Austria is most famous for its huge variety of delicious pastries. Perhaps one of the simplest and most popular desserts is the so called Kaiserschmarrn: a light and fluffy batter made with separately beaten eggs, which results in something between a soufflé and a pancake. According to the story of this dessert, it was first prepared and served for Emperor Franz Joseph I during the 19th century, who also gave the name to this dish. Now imagine the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I and his beloved wife Sissi sitting at the beach under a palm tree somewhere in the Caribbean. Obviously they won’t be eating their Kaiserschmarrn with apple puree, but rather use tropical fruits instead, like coconut, pineapple or passion fruit. Maybe the result would look somehow like this Caribbean Coconut Kaiserschmarrn.
Basically, I started with the idea of making a coconut Kaiserschmarrn. I replaced the required milk by coconut milk (which is always better when it is homemade), the flour partly by grated fresh coconut and the butter, in which the batter is baked, by coconut oil. When I plated the Kaiserschmarrn I also had the idea to sprinkle the dessert with grated coconut instead of the classical icing sugar. All this fresh coconut – accompanied by some crispy coconut chips – gave a very refreshing touch to the final dessert.
Probably the only ingredient in this dessert, which is not very tropical but also comes from far away, were the goji berries a.k.a. wolfberries. I like goji berries because of their unique and unusual taste, which I thought could work well in a tropical environment too. I used them instead of the classical raisins and soaked them in rum. Instead of the apple puree I was considering tropical fruits. I used hot pineapple as a fruity and sour accompaniment to the sweet coconut pastry. Finally, some grated fresh lime zest and a spoonful of passion fruit syrup turned the dessert into a sweet tropical heaven.
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