Glarus pastry
A large flower-shaped puff-pastry tart, with almond filling in one half and dried-plum filling in the other, dusted with icing sugar. The bakers of Glarus make it for feast days, Christmas first of all.
It is called the queen of Glarus specialities. Round, about five centimetres high and twenty to thirty across, it hides two fillings side by side under its lid: one half almond, the other half plum.
Origin
Where does it come from? Culinary Heritage of Switzerland offers two leads. Since such pies came from France, Glarus officers serving the French crown may have brought it home in the mid-18th century. Or Anna Aebli-Oertli of Ennenda received the recipe in 1858, as a dowry, from a cousin who had died; with her husband she founded a line of Aebli bakers that lasted until 1968. The cantonal census of 1837 counts twelve pie bakers among more than 2,500 craftsmen. In 1900, an account of the canton’s festivities lists this “Glarus torte” among the sweets of carnival and St Fridolin’s Day, with almonds on one side and jam on the other. The recipes of that time vary the second half, raspberry or something else, and use a plain tin: the flower is probably more recent.
Making
Peeled almonds, finely grated, are bound with eggs and sugar; dried plums, grated too, the same way, and a little apple purée softens it all. Almonds and dried plums often come from Spain or the United States, the rest from the region. The baker rolls out the puff pastry, keeps back a strip one centimetre thick for the rim, then cuts the base and the lid, both thinner, with a flower template. The rim rises in the oven and gives the pastry its outline. Before closing it, each filling goes on its own half; the lid is cut with an oval in the centre and scored with knife strokes all around. Unbaked, it is barely two centimetres thick: for large orders it is frozen standing up, like a vinyl record. It leaves the oven under a thick layer of icing sugar. Since the 1960s machines have peeled, grated and stoned, but the work has stayed a craft, and some still make it at home.
At the table
Carnival, St Fridolin’s Day, the Landsgemeinde, and above all Christmas, since the 1950s at the latest: the Glarus pastry is a festive cake. It used to be posted all over Switzerland, and factories are said to have ordered up to 300 for Christmas; higher postage and greater mobility probably explain why those parcels dwindled. It is now sold all year, yet it remains a cake for occasions. For hikes or a snack between meals, people prefer its little siblings, the “Beggeli”, which hold only one of the two fillings.
Today
According to the president of the cantonal bakers’ and confectioners’ association, quoted by Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, the pastry brings in about a tenth of the turnover of the bakeries that make it. Most are sold straight over the counter, to locals and to hikers who carry one home. Outside the canton the small ones are called “Glarner Pastetli”; in Glarus some say “Öpfelbeggeli”, apple pastries, though there is no apple inside: probably a memory of the earliest pies, filled with apple purée and raisins.
Sources: Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, entry “Glarner Pastete (Pastetä & Beggeli)”.