Viennese Hot Chocolate

The city of Vienna is famous the world over for its coffee house culture. While coffee is the signature beverage consumed alongside scrumptious Viennese cakes and pastries, it is by far not the only hot beverage that you can get at the city’s famous cafés.

This hot chocolate called Wiener Schokolade or Heiße Schokolade Wiener Art in German is another Viennese signature drink. The special ingredient in this recipe is an egg yolk, which gives the hot chocolate its thick consistency.

Using the right chocolate is important. This recipe calls for semisweet chocolate with 60 to 70 percent cocoa content. Alternatively, you can also use bittersweet chocolate, which contains less sugar and has a higher cocoa content than semisweet chocolate, so the drink is less sweet and has a deeper chocolate flavor.

To prevent the egg yolk from curdling, you start out by mixing it with only a small amount of the hot chocolate to temper it. Once you have mixed everything together and return it to the heat, again be very careful not to overheat it to prevent curdling.

You can serve this wonderful and warming drink at virtually any occasion—for a brunch on a birthday, Mother’s Day, or Valentine’s Day. For Christmas, it is often spiked with a few teaspoons of rum, preferably Austrian rum. Because it’s so rich, it also makes a wonderful dessert on a chilly fall or winter day. 

Whatever the occasion, a generous whipped cream topping is obligatory for Viennese hot chocolate. For a little extra flavor, dust the whipped cream with a pinch of cinnamon or ground cardamom.