Zucker : Bretzlein

This delightful recipe comes from the 1788 Augsburgisches Kochbuch by Sophie Juliane Weiler, a renowned compendium of southern German culinary practice during the late Enlightenment. Augsburg, a prosperous city in Bavaria, was a center of trade and fine living, and its cookbooks reflect the infatuation with sugar, almonds, and rich baking that swept through central European kitchens in the 18th century. Recipes like these were enjoyed by wealthy households, often around Christmas or festive occasions, when costly ingredients and intricate shaping were both possible and desirable. The use of sugar and almonds signals the influence of Baroque-era pastrycraft, while the familiar pretzel shape bridges the old medieval symbology with the fashionable tastes of the era. In Weiler’s time, such bretzlein would have marked a house’s refinement and their cook’s skill.

In an 18th-century kitchen, the cook would have used a wide wooden bowl for mixing, a large wooden spoon or whisk for beating the eggs and sugar, and a sturdy nut grinder or mortar and pestle to pulverize the blanched almonds. Butter would have been gently melted in a small copper or tin-lined pan over a wood or coal fire. The dough would then be shaped on a floured, well-used noodle board with deft hands, and the tiny bretzlein arranged on flat tin baking sheets liberally greased with fresh butter. Baking took place in a brick or clay wood-fired oven, monitored by eye and smell rather than thermostats.