To celebrate our silver wedding anniversary we travelled to Austria to meet up with friends at the Spielmann Hotel http://www.hotel-spielmann.com We had a wonderful week including a blessing of our marriage at the church in Lermoos (a village just across the valley from Ehrwald), a hike up the mountains and a Tyrolean concert held in the village on the day of our anniversary.

After the blessing we returned to the hotel, where Margaret and Christian Spielmann had arranged for cake and champagne to be served. We sat enjoying the celebration and our friends made some lovely speeches to celebrate twenty five years of marriage.

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The concert at the village hall was excellent, Lizzie made another new friend, Abi danced on the table and everyone had too much wine.

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The following day we went on the hike – on one of the wettest days we’ve ever experienced in the mountains. We drove to the meeting point just outside Garmisch and waited for everyone to don their hiking boots and weatherproofs. Lizzie had brought her dainty suede sandals and a lipstick! Christian was astonished when he saw her “climbing” shoes and rummaged in his rucksack and produced a pair of hiking boots (one of the many spare pairs he carried for occasions such as this). Lizzie donned the shoes, checked her lipstick and we were off.

The first stage was easy, up on the cable car and then a fairly gentle start to our hike. From then on it became much steeper. Crossing rivers, wading through streams that snaked in and out of caves and all the time climbing higher and higher. We were absolutely soaked and cold but we have never laughed so much and the scenery was breathtaking (once the fog lifted!).

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We reached the Almhutte at the top of the peak and were glad to get into the warm and take our wet coats off. We had various drinks, including beers, schnapps and hot chocolate with rum. We ate Wurst (German sausage) with mustard and brown bread, followed by Kaiserschmerrn – a delicious pancake-type pudding served with sugar and apple sauce, named after the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph who loved this dessert (see recipe). After the food and drinks, we were ready to tackle the descent. Christian put Abi on his shoulders and climbed down the mountain ahead of us. We finally reached the bottom and were glad to get into our cars and head back to the hotel for a hot bath and another great evening at Spielmanns.

RECIPE FOR KAISERSCHMERRN

130g plain flour

240 ml milk

3 eggs

60gm butter, melted

2 tbs icing sugar

Raisins soaked in rum (optional)

Sunflower oil for cooking

Put the flour, milk, eggs, melted butter and a pinch of salt in a bowl and whisk thoroughly into a thick batter.

Heat the oil in a pan (use a hob to table pan if you have one). Add the batter (and the rum soaked raisins if you wish) and let the mixture cook until the bottom is brown. Flick the pancake if you’re brave, if not use a plate to turn it out and replace it in the pan for another few minutes until that side is brown too. Once the pancake is cooked through, chop it into small pieces in the pan. Sprinkle the icing sugar all over and serve with either apple sauce or jam. Blackberry or damson jam is good with this dish.

Please send photos of any recipes you try and I will post them on the blog. Guten Appetit!