Their Name is Legion
Recall the buffet at any decent hotel. Which section is the richest and most frequently replenished? Right, the dessert section. Salads and hot dishes are more or less stereotypical; ethnic dishes only accentuate the fairly standard menu with elegant vignettes. But the dessert tables - they are literally groaning with delicacies, each time new and increasingly interesting.
Another matter is that describing all these almond mountains, marzipan glaciers, pastry scatterings, and sand deserts is no easy task. Where to start? With the kings of desserts - cakes like the Austrian Sacher, Australian Pavlova, or German Schwarzwälder? Or perhaps turn first to pies - Anglo-Saxon flans, French charlotte, Sicilian cassata? Or maybe go through the "little ones of this world" - Danish cookies, Belgian waffles, Breton crêpes? In short, this is a classic case of the object of study influencing the researcher: how to make sense of all this diversity and variety? Probably it makes no sense to construct clear methodological schemes - that's a subject for a separate multi-page dissertation - better to just race "at a gallop through Europe."
Honey
We'll start with gingerbread. The fact is that honey is generally the oldest sweet known to man. Accordingly, "stone" gingerbread, baked from stiff dough mixed with coarse flour, honey, and water, represents the most ancient example of a confectionery product.
So domestic culinary historians, who attribute the glory of inventing gingerbread to the Slavs, are somewhat disingenuous. For similar products are widespread throughout Europe. And not only in Europe - say, at the dawn of civilization "honey bread" was held in high esteem in Egypt (remains of proto-gingerbread have been found in the tombs of some pharaohs), India, and the Middle East. Moreover, primarily as ritual, sacred food.
By the way, the famous Scottish oat gingerbread "parkin" or English gingerbread "gingerbread" fall under the same "sacred" department. Namely, they are most popular around Christmas and New Year. As, indeed, are Polish "katarzynki" (the best have been made in Toruń since time immemorial), or soft German gingerbread "Lebkuchen." Alongside those very gingerbread houses (of course, not of such gigantic proportions as in the case of Hansel and Gretel), they are still invariably present on festive winter tables.
Shortcrust
Peoples deprived of the bee population invented their own ways to make something "teeth-breaking." Let's set aside the indisputable hit from the perspective of dentists - Eastern kozinaki, also known as gozinaki - nuts boiled down in honey or molasses. They can by no means be called baked goods. Let's focus on cookies. Despite all their simplicity (stiff shortcrust dough is hard to modify: flour, butter, water, sometimes egg - not much room to maneuver), "cookies" also vary greatly from country to country. Compare, for example, the classic Scottish shortbread "pittheathly bannock" with almonds, ginger, zest, and rice grains for extra crunch with the no less classic English brown oat cookies. Or German vanilla "Vanillekipferl" with French "petits fours."
Yes, yes, despite the fact that we are used to considering petits fours as something buttery and airy, one of the three categories of these pastries is called "petit four sec" and implies dry biscuits served with dessert cream or ice cream with tea, liqueurs, and dessert wines. By the way, biscuits are also cookies. At least from the perspective of any Western European. And finally, the indisputable "shortcrust" classics. First and foremost, all sorts of "pies." The word pie in English means any pie in general, but in all other languages (including Russian) it has become the definition of a special kind of tart made from shortcrust dough with a filling of various fruits and berries. However, even in the Anglo-American lexicon, "pie" now primarily means a shortcrust pie with apple filling. There is even a stable idiom: "He's as American as apple pie."
Hardly inferior in popularity to "American pies" are French "tartes." In principle, the same thing - but with a certain flair inherent in Old World cuisine. In general, it all boils down to the fact that establishments specializing in European cuisine serve "tarte," while broader-range restaurants serve "pie." Although it's essentially the same thing. And then there are German "Torten," Polish, Spanish, Italian analogues. And no wonder: the recipe for this kind of pie dates back to almost ancient times. Arguing about the right of primogeniture in this case is a pointless exercise.
Rolled and Puff
A completely different situation arises when it comes to strudels. That is, multi-layered rolls made of thin dough with some sweet filling. Any person with even a little understanding of confectionery will tell you straight away: a real strudel can only be Austrian. Better if it's Viennese, cherry or apple - then authenticity is guaranteed one hundred percent.
Of course, strudels are also made in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland - in short, in all the lands that once belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as in adjacent regions. Hungarians even claim that the secret of making the famous rolls came to the Austrians from the blessed lands of Pannonia. They say that the Viennese still use only Hungarian flour for baking strudels.
Meanwhile, the "parents" of strudel should be sought much further south. The main one is Turkish phyllo dough. Fans of Greek or Bulgarian cuisine may be indignant: "What do you mean, Turkish?" Yes, indeed Turkish - to the Balkans, the thinnest, literally paper-thin sheets of stretched unsweetened dough came with the Ottoman conquerors. And together with the same Turks, they reached Vienna, which they conquered - unlike the troops of the Sublime Porte itself.
So the closest relative of the Viennese strudel is not the mass-market item sold in our stores under the general name 'fruit roll', but the noble Eastern baklava. The principle is the same: thin sheets of filo layered with a sweet filling. Only in Turkey, the Caucasus, or the Maghreb countries, this filling is Southern cloying and seasoned with a generous amount of nuts essential for all Eastern sweets, while in restrained Europe it is more strict, focusing not on molasses and honey, but on 'live' fruits.
Sweet pastries
Incidentally, the Austrian pastry school surpasses even the French and Italian ones. The center of Europe, the center of a once-great empire, a transit point between East and West - it's no wonder that the fame of Viennese pastry shops sometimes eclipses French cafés, and sweet Viennese buns have long become a class definition - again, like French baguettes, which are called such regardless of where they are baked.
Moreover, the famous 'Danish pastries' - small cookies and pastries made from yeast dough with various fillings, now popular worldwide - also came from Austria.
For the rest (regarding sweet pastries), we again find ourselves in a complete stalemate. Because the list of yeast dough treats in Europe alone exceeds the scope of a single magazine article. Just Polish 'babas' and 'mazurkas' alone are worth it! And French 'brioches'? And 'stollen', the German version of our Easter kulich?
Perhaps it makes sense to focus on one very special pastry region of the Old World. Namely, Sicily.
Sicily is myriads of various pastries, small and large, filled with fruits, berries, custard, candied fruits, jelly, nuts... The choice of sweets (and I haven't even mentioned marzipans made from almond flour, or 'cannoli' - crispy tubes filled with ricotta cream) freezes the imagination of a white man. And the crown of all is the 'cassata' cake, whose name comes from the Arabic 'qasida' - a song. And indeed it is a song! Only culinary. A cake made from at least 30 eggs, a couple of kilograms of honey, not to mention mountains of sugar, candied fruits, flour, and ricotta. You probably won't find it on hotel buffet tables... Although - you never know? Maybe we just didn't look hard enough?
Unfortunately, there is no room left to write about confectionery products of, so to speak, the second rank - God forbid, not in taste, no, in the culinary hierarchy! But I think pancakes and fritters, waffles and bagels will become heroes of one of our future publications. And cakes - they are a whole separate topic. And we will definitely return to it!
Apple pie
Sift 2 cups of flour with a pinch of salt into a large bowl, add 2 tbsp sugar and 2/3 cup vegetable oil. Mix until the dough resembles coarse bread crumbs. Then, while continuing to knead, gradually and carefully pour in 6 tbsp very cold water - the dough should become completely smooth and elastic. Then divide the dough into two unequal parts (one should be slightly larger than the other), shape both into flat discs, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour. While the dough chills, wash, peel, and thinly slice 4-5 large apples. Sprinkle the slices with lemon juice to prevent browning, heat 120 g butter in a saucepan, add the prepared apples and a cup of sugar, and cook over medium heat, stirring, for about 15 minutes. Then transfer the apples with a slotted spoon to a separate bowl, continue to reduce the remaining juice for about another 15 minutes, then pour it into the bowl with the apples. When the filling has cooled, sprinkle it with 2 tbsp flour mixed with 1 tsp ground cinnamon and mix thoroughly. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking dish with parchment paper, place the larger dough disc on top (with edges). Spread the filling, cover the pie with the remaining dough, pinching the edges. Make several small holes in the 'lid', brush the top with butter, generously sprinkle with powdered sugar, place in the oven, and bake for an hour. Serve immediately, best accompanied by ice cream or whipped cream.
Ginger cookies
In a large bowl, mix 3 cups flour, 2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 tbsp ground ginger. Add 1/3 cup soaked raisins, 1/3 cup candied fruits, and 1/3 cup crystallized ginger. In a separate bowl, combine 3/4 cup molasses (or thick cane sugar syrup), 180 g softened butter, and 1/3 cup brown sugar; heat the mixture, stirring, until smooth, then cool slightly and add 3 eggs and 3 tbsp milk. Stir and set aside. Pile the flour mixture, make a well in the center, and gradually pour in the liquid, constantly stirring the dough. When the dough is fully mixed, drop it by spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet and place in a preheated oven at 170°C. Bake until done (about an hour).