Willisauer Ringli
Small, very hard biscuit rings, left to melt in the mouth rather than crunched. They have been made in Willisau, in the Lucerne hinterland, since the 19th century.
At a table in Willisau, a small brown ring is placed in the hollow of the hand, then struck with a sharp blow of the elbow: it bursts into three or four pieces. Biting into it would be unwise.
Origin
According to Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, the recipe did not originate in Willisau but at Heidegg Castle, in the household of the Pfyffer family. Martha Peyer brought it with her when, at the end of the 1850s, she married the baker Heinrich Maurer, who had settled in the small Lucerne town at the age of 27. The first rings then came out of his wood-fired oven. The secret did not hold: other bakers and families in the town were soon baking them, and in 1892 a cookery book published in Kaiseraugst already printed a version.
Making
The dough contains no fat. A syrup of sugar and water, flavoured with lemon and orange, makes up almost half of it; then come half-white flour, salt and a little honey. In the past, the whole family rolled finger-thick ropes and closed them into rings, and the trays were passed under the town fountain before baking so that the sugar would not crust. Today, a machine pushes the dough through a ring-shaped nozzle, and a sprayer has replaced the fountain. After half an hour at 180 °C, the Ringli come out hard, speckled with tiny white dots.
At the table
It is the sugar that makes the biscuit so hard. A producer quoted by Culinary Heritage of Switzerland says customers have lost a filling to it; he advises breaking it, then letting each piece melt on the tongue, which brings out the orange and lemon better. It is nibbled with a coffee or a tea, as dessert or as an afternoon snack.
Today
No patent protects the recipe, and an expert opinion concluded that anyone could make them. In the 1970s, however, a Willisau manufacturer won a case against a Fribourg company that was selling “genuine” Ringli: since then, only those baked in the small town are entitled to bear its name. In all, close to 500 tonnes are produced each year, and the producer quoted above sees his sales climb in summer and before Christmas.
Sources: Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, entry “Willisauer Ringli”.