Grisons peach stones
Bündner peach stones are a marzipan-like confectionery product in the shape of a peach stone . Grisons peach stones are above all a specialty of the city of Chur , but since they are also made in Arosa , they are no longer just called Chur, but also “ Grisons peach stones”.
description
Bündner peach stones consist of a soft, slightly bitter, not very sweet almond mass and are brownish-orange to red. After a few days, a drier, somewhat harder outer layer forms around the soft core on the stones, but this does not change the taste.
history
It is unclear who exactly first made the Grisons peach stones. Eugen A. Meier points to the first known document in his book Das süsse Basel : “The wedding dinner, which was served to (a) young married couple in 1771 (...), underlines the richness of the dessert plates, which were now piled with (.. .) Cakes, Toutelettlein, Pfersigstein from almonds, almond wreaths, (...). How similar those Pfersigstein of almonds actually were to today's Graubünden marzipan specialty can no longer be determined.
Today, the Chur master confectioner Otto Hürsch-Müller (1860–1947) is considered the inventor of this specialty ; He is said to have made them for the first time in 1887 in his pastry shop at Reichsgasse 57, the birthplace of the painter Angelika Kauffmann . In 1931 Otto Hürsch's son Otto Hürsch-Naef (1888–1974) registered the name and shape for “Bündner Peach Stones” with the Federal Office for Intellectual Property; In 1946 another Chur pastry shop registered the name “Chur peach stones”. In the eleventh volume of the Idiotikon , published in 1952, under the term “peach stone” there is the note: “(in a model) marzipan shaped like a peach stone”. It is therefore certain that the Grisons peach stone had already become a Central Grisons specialty in the first half of the 20th century.
Why a marzipan confectionery in the shape of a peach stone became a specialty in Chur remains to be seen; neither almonds nor peaches are typical crops of the region. It is conceivable that confectioners who emigrated to Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries brought the recipe with them when they returned home, as Venice was the European hometown of marzipan, which came from the Orient.
Manufacturing
Bündner peach stones consist of water, almonds , sugar syrup, bitter almonds or bitter almond flavor, sandalwood , cocoa and cinnamon . Depending on the producer and the recipe used, kirsch and sorbitol may also be added.
Bitter almonds or the bitter almond aroma give the peach stones their slightly bitter taste, while sandalwood, cocoa powder and cinnamon give them their typical brownish-red color. Sorbitol can be used as a humectant.
The raw marzipan mass with the ingredients is finely rubbed by a roller system until the fine mass has reached the desired consistency. The peach stone mass is now pressed into the mold by hand using a negative mold.
The original recipe has been in the possession of the Chur confectioner Arthur Bühler since 2006, who produces more than a ton of peach stones a year in the confectionery at Obertor.
Web links
- Bündner peach stones in the database of Swiss culinary heritage
Individual evidence
- ↑ Delicatessen Switzerland
- ↑ Churer Magazin, December edition , p. 29 [1] ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on-line.
