Kaiserschmarrn (Torn Caramelised Soufflé Pancake)

Variations

• Finished in the oven: once the underside has set, put the pan in a 180°C oven for 6-8 minutes to cook it through, then take it out and tear it. It saves the turning, but it also costs one round of new surface against the pan, so give the caramel stage a little longer after tearing.
• Without raisins: as in the photograph. Austrian households split on this. If you use them, soak and drain them — apfelstrudel, from the same country, soaks its raisins for thirty minutes as well. Dropped into the batter wet, the spot around each one stays soggy.
• To serve: most often Zwetschkenröster (a plum compote) or apple sauce. The sourness cuts the butter and the caramel.
• The name: Schmarrn is Austrian German for a mess, or nonsense. The torn heap is what gave it the name.

Tips

• The tear is the method, not the failure. Tearing a pancake as you turn it is usually the failure — bindae-tteok warns that with wet fillings "the batter spreads and tears as you turn it". Kaiserschmarrn is poured meaning to be torn, so the thing other pancakes guard against, the batter folding and breaking on the spatula, is not something to worry about here.
• The thickness takes away the heat answer. Pancakes keep the pan low because "too hot burns the outside before the inside cooks". That answer works for a thin batter. At 2-3cm the underside burns while you wait for the middle. Kaiserschmarrn changes the shape instead of lowering the heat further: quartered and torn, the unset middle becomes fresh surface lying directly on the pan.
• It makes no attempt to keep the rise. Soufflé explains that "The height is not a structure, it is a state in progress", which is why it is eaten the moment it leaves the oven. This dish gives the height up from the start. What the whites give it is not height but the open crumb a tear exposes, and the pieces are small enough to cook right through in the pan.
• Whisk the whites the way a soufflé does. "Soft peaks only." Over-whipped whites do not fold in; they stay as white lumps and those patches are dry when torn.
• Why tear rather than cut. A cut face is smooth; a torn one is rough and all edges. The sugar that goes in at the end melts and browns on those edges first (what sugar does). Neat cubes colour evenly and flatly.
• Caramel only in the last two or three minutes. A lot of sugar in the batter itself starts the underside of a thick batter burning before the middle is cooked. Keep the batter's sugar low and add the caramel sugar separately, after tearing.
• Serve it in the pan. As the caramel cools the pieces start to stick to each other and break when moved. In Austrian mountain huts it comes to the table in its iron pan.