Spätzle (sometimes spelled spaetzle, or even spaetzlï), is a traditional sort of noodle-cum-dumpling common in dishes from Southern Germany and Switzerland. It’s made with a simple dough that’s cut into little pieces, or sometime squeezed through a potato ricer, so that you get little curls of dough that’s more like pasta than the big biscuit-like balls we usually think of as “dumplings”.
The always-enticing food blog FXcuisine.com has step-by-step photos (like the one above) for making an interesting variation on spaetzle: apfel-spaetzle Grated apple is incorporated into the spaetzle dough, then once the dumplings are boiled, they’re sauteed in butter and tossed with sugar and cinnamon as a dessert treat.
This could be a fun dessert to go along with fondue, in place of having chocolate fondue as the default dessert item.
Don’t forget Austria (primarily in the West, i.e. near Southern Germany and Switzerland, but you can get them here in Vienna too).
No comment on the “noodle-cum-dumpling” thing.
PS Käsespätzle are delicious. They are often served in the cast-iron-frying-pan-cum-serving dish they are baked in, with crispy fried onions on top, and taste in such a way that one could never again eat macaroni and cheese. But this recipe you mention, man I gotta try that, as soon as my hunger strike is over.
This apple version of spätzle sounds delicious. I’ve tried making them (the regular kind, not apple, not cheese, and certainly not even-cum-anything) a couple of times, but with only moderate success. It wasn’t until I went to a German-American restaurant near Glens Falls, New York that I really think I got something like the “real thing.”