Mohr im Hemd

Gretel always said that Mehlspeisen are where you see the soul of Viennese cooking. Not in the roasts, not in the broth. In the sweet things. Mohr im Hemd is the dish I point to when someone tells me Viennese desserts are all about pastry. This one has no pastry at all. It's a steamed pudding, dark with chocolate and ground hazelnuts, and it comes out of the mold trembling and warm, ready to be drowned in hot chocolate sauce and buried under a cloud of Schlagobers.

I first made it properly at GAFA in Vienna, but I'd eaten it dozens of times before that, on childhood trips to Austria with Gretel and my grandmother Eva. In a Beisl near the Naschmarkt, a Gasthaus in Bad Ischl, once at a Kaffeehaus in Graz where the pudding arrived so dark it looked almost black against the white cream. Each time it was slightly different. Some cooks used almonds. Others used a mix. The chocolate sauce ranged from pourable to nearly a ganache. But the principle was always the same: a rich, dense pudding that depends on beaten egg whites for its lift and a water bath for its gentleness.

The technique here is the bain-marie, and it matters. You're not baking this pudding. You're steaming it. The water bath keeps the temperature even and gentle, which is why the inside stays silky and moist instead of going dry and cakey. If you've never steamed a pudding before, don't let that intimidate you. You butter a mold, fill it, cover it, and set it in a pan of hot water. The oven does the rest. Two hours later you turn it out and it looks like something from another century, because it is.