In 1851 The “Cream Puff” Appeared On US Restaurant Menus

National Pastry Day celebrates one of the world’s most favored baked goods. On December 9th, visit your local bakery and pick up one or two of your favorite kinds. Pastries can be traced as far back as the ancient Mediterranean where they had almost paper-thin, multilayered baklava and Phyllo dough. Pastry making began in Northern Europe after the Crusaders brought it back from the Mediterranean. French and Italian Renaissance chefs eventually perfected the puff and choux pastries while 17th and 18th-century chefs brought new recipes to the table. Included in the innovative recipes were Napoleons, cream puffs and eclairs. Culinary historians often consider French pastry chef Antonin Careme (1784 – 1833) to have been the original great master of pastry making in modern times. Pastries were first brought to Europe during the Muslim invasion of the 7th century and quickly captured the imagination of European chefs. The most important tool of any pastry chef are their hands. The original donuts of New England did not get its name because of the presence of any nuts. They were actually pastries without holes and were made in the shape and size of walnuts and hence they were named donuts. Mantecados La Muralla baked a “polvoron” – a type of shortbread – which measured 16.25 feet long and 7.87 feet wide and weighed 660 pounds, setting the world record for the Largest Pastry. The Pastry War may sound like a bake-off competition, but it was actually a military conflict sparked in part by an unpaid debt to a French pastry chef. The war began in November 1838 with the naval blockade of some Mexican ports and the capture of the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz by French forces sent by King Louis-Philippe. It ended several months later in March 1839 with a British-brokered peace. Italian nuns and monks introduced pastries to Italy. Nuns baked pastries from ancient recipes and sold them to the public to support themselves, according to Good Food Stories. Nuns of Naples were famous for their sweets. In the 17th century, each convent even had their own specialty. But, their baking was seasonal and mostly for holidays. These nuns ultimately invented the Italian pastries, sfogliatelle and struffoli. An Austrian pastry influenced the invention of the croissant. According to the Smithsonian, the story began when Austrian entrepreneur August Zang opened the first Viennese bakery in Paris in 1838. After Zang sold his bakery and moved back to Austria, Parisians started opening up bakeries imitating his Austrian pastries. Somewhere along the way, a kipfel, a crescent shaped pastry, was made with puff pastry and the croissant was born. The baked goods corporation, Sara Lee, then introduced croissants to America with frozen croissant packages. In the plays of Aristophanes (5th century BC), there are mentions of sweetmeats including small pastries filled with fruit. In Danish pastry and croissants, the characteristic flaky texture is achieved by repeatedly rolling out a dough similar to that for yeast bread, spreading it with butter, and folding it to produce many thin layers. Although today known world-wide as “Danishes” these pastries did not originate in Denmark, but were brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers, particularly from Vienna in the 1850’s when Danish pastry workers went on a long-term wage strike. It did not take long before these pastries were popular throughout Denmark and the demand persisted after the strike ended. This is why these types of pastries are called Viennese (wienerbrød) in Denmark. The “cream puff” has appeared on US restaurant menus since at least 1851. The Luxury Zebra Cro. sold at London’s Dum Dum Donutterie is the most expensive pastry in the world. So-called because of its striped layers, the Luxury Zebra Cro is technically a Cronut – doughnut-croissant hybrid. The Cronut, which costs around $2000, includes saffron-infused butter croissant dough, Cristal rosé champagne caviar, gold leaf, Tahitian gold vanilla beans, and rare Amedei Porcelana chocolate, which is a dark chocolate made by the Amedei chocolatier of Tuscany and is often called the world’s most expensive chocolate. Sources:

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