Powidltascherl

Powidltascherl are small potato-dough pockets folded around a dense, unsweetened plum butter, boiled or fried and rolled in poppy seeds and sugar. It's Austria's plum pocket, and it's genuinely different from Marillenknödel, its more famous fruit-dumpling cousin — Powidltascherl uses a flat, folded pocket of jam-like plum butter, not a whole apricot wrapped whole inside a ball of dough.

What it actually is

A potato-and-flour dough rolls out thin and cuts into small squares, each one folded around a spoonful of Powidl — a dense, dark, deliberately unsweetened plum butter cooked down for hours until it's thick and spreadable, with none of the brightness of a regular jam. The pockets seal at the edges, boil or pan-fry until golden, and roll while still warm in poppy seeds mixed with sugar and melted butter.

Powidl is unsweetened on its own; the sugar comes entirely from the coating. That's the specific balance the dish is built around — a plain, almost savoury-dark plum filling contrasted against a genuinely sweet outer coating, rather than a uniformly sweet dumpling throughout.

How it's served

• Warm, rolled in poppy seeds and sugar, straight from the pan.
• As a dessert, though also common as a light main course in Austrian home cooking.
• In multiples, several small pockets to a plate rather than one large dumpling.

Writing it on a menu

• Flag gluten from the flour in the dough.
• Say that it's filled with plum butter, not fresh fruit, since Powidl's dense, dark, unsweetened character is different from a bright fruit filling.
• Note that it's genuinely different from Marillenknödel, since both are Austrian fruit dumplings that guests might otherwise conflate.
• Mention that it's naturally vegetarian.