June 06, 2025
A sweet greeting from the pan
Strauben
Some recipes are about more than just ingredients - they speak of old times, festive moments and small gestures with great meaning. Strauben is one of these special dishes. In Tyrol, it was once part of the courtship - a sweet ‘engagement greeting’ made from dough and hot fat. Today, it is one thing above all: a crispy treat that brings back childhood memories.
Using a special funnel and a great deal of dexterity, the viscous dripping dough was turned into elaborate wreaths - golden yellow on the outside, fluffy and soft on the inside. A real festive dish that you can smell again as soon as you think of it.
Ingredients:
- 500g flour
- ca. 1/2 l milk
- 3 eggs
- 1 pinch of salt
- A little cinnamon & sugar
- Clarified butter or vegetable fat for frying
- Icing sugar for sprinkling
This is how it's done:
- Prepare the dough: Firstly, beat the flour, milk, eggs, salt and a little cinnamon and sugar into a thick batter. The batter should be heavy but should not have any lumps.
- Use the ‘ Leier’: As soon as the fat in the pan is hot, the special moment arrives: using a so-called ‘Lorl’ or ‘Leier’ funnel, the batter is poured into the hot fat in a spiral - a round pattern reminiscent of a Kranzl. Traditionally, the dough was poured in accompanied by a soft ‘Bitt für uns’.
- Fry until golden yellow: Fry the straube on both sides in hot lard until golden yellow. Turn with two spatulas and carefully lift out of the fat. Drain on a plate with a napkin.
- Serve sweet: Sprinkle with icing sugar to finish - that's all you need for a real piece of Tyrolean pastry tradition.
A culinary treasure
The Straube used to be a rare treat - a sweet highlight on public holidays or at bean soup time. Those who liked it ate it with milk or coffee, some even ate it cold. In the family, it was firmly associated with grandma - with the old lyre that was only taken out of the drawer for this occasion.
A sweet greeting from another time that still gives just as much pleasure today.
Share