Spanisch Brötli ( en, "Spanish bun", also known as ''Spanisch Brödli'', ''Spanischbrötli'' or ''Spanischbrödli'') is a speciality

pastry Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" sugges ...

from

Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...

, Switzerland. It is a light, flaky pastry filled with a mix of roasted, crushed

hazelnuts The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus ''Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according ...

and apricot jam. Its structure has a square of dough for the lower portion, apricot and hazelnut filling for the middle portion, and a square of dough for the upper portion. It has an "X" (or "cross") cut into the top to allow for the food to vent hot air during baking.

History

Spanisch Brötli were first mentioned in a 1701 book by Samuel Hottinger about the city and baths of Baden. Brötli were very popular among the wealthy people of

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich ...

, so their servants had to travel 25 km to Baden by foot over night to purchase brötli in the early morning hours and bring them back to Zürich in time for breakfast. In 1847 the Swiss Northern Railway was opened, connecting Zürich and Baden. This allowed Spanisch Brötli to be brought to Zürich in just 45 minutes, leading to the line being informally known as the

Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn The Swiss Northern Railway (German: ''Schweizerische Nordbahn'', SNB), informally known as the ''Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn'', opened the first railway line within Switzerland in 1847, the Zürich–Baden line. This followed the extension of a Fren ...

from then on. During the 20th century these pastries fell out of favour and were almost forgotten until local bakeries revived the recipe in 2007, creating some new variants. Nowadays the pastry is sold under a trademark ''Spanischbrödli''.

External links

Spanischbrötli's entry
in the Database of Culinary Heritage of Switzerland
An article
on Spanisch Brötli featuring photographs Swiss pastries Culinary Heritage of Switzerland {{food-stub

History

See also

External links