I have a small baking shop which focuses on pies/tarts from around the world and it came to be when I wanted to bake here in Brazil the desserts I ate when I lived in Switzerland. Then I started researching and testing recipes from other countries and would like to hear from you what I’m missing.
So far I know and bake:
🇨🇭Bündner Nusstorte, Solothurner Torte, Tiroler Cake and Mandel Höpfli (I know the last two are not pies but I love them)
🇩🇪 Linzertorte
🇦🇹 Sachertorte
🇮🇹 Torta Caprese
🇫🇷 Frangipane
Comments
Linz is in Austria.
I guess the most famous German one would be the black forest cake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Forest_gateau
Mazurek for Easter. Also Babka, very simple pie but you would need special form
Makowiec and sernik for Christmas. Sernik is cheesecake, makowiec is a pie with poppy seeds. Polish sernik would be sernik krakowski
Also sometimes piernik
Karpatka, napoleonka or kremówka – very similar pies, kremówka is famous because of John Paul II
Wuzetka – popular in the 70-80′
Blok czekoladowy – literally a chocolate block
I don’t know if you’d classify it as a pie but makowiec (poppy seed cake) is what Poles bake every holiday. There’s also a more pie/tart version
Dutch cakes and pies with recipes:
Slagroomtaart, whipped cream cake is the classic Dutch cake for birthdays and celebrations. There is also a coffee-flavoured version, Mokkataart.
The cake available at almost any cafe to go with coffee is Appeltaart, Dutch apple pie.
Also popular is Limburgse vlaai, a pie with a not very sweet yeast dough and fruit or rice filling, from the province of Limburg in the South of the Netherlands: Abrikozenvlaai, apricot pie, Kersenvlaai, Dutch cherry pie, Rabarbervlaai, Kruimelvlaai, Custard crumble pie and Rijstevlaai, Dutch rice pie
My favourite vlaai is a sweet and tart pie with gooseberries and a sweet merengue on top, Kruisbessenvlaai met schuim
In continental Croatia we have međimurska gibanica and rudarska greblica.
Međimurska gibanica is a pie made of phyllo and four kinds of filling: poppy seeds, walnuts, grated apples and fresh cheese (they are all in the same pie, each layer has a different filling).
Rudarska greblica is an interesting savory pie made of two sheets of dough most similar to shortcrust dough (but not quite the same) that has a layer of filling in between. The filling is made of fresh cheese with adition of walnuts (most common), spinach, swiss chard, nettle leaves, leek or grated yellow carrots.
In Portugal it’s most definitely Pastel de Nata. It is an egg-custard tart pastry, and it’s heaven!
In Belgium, we have “sugar pie”. A pie with caramelised/crystallized sugar (and butter) on top.
It’s runny and crunchy at the same time… and delicious!
It can be made with white or brown sugar.
Smurfentaart: something with white chocolate flakes
Bresilienne: nuts, whipped cream and pudding
Back what my mother made when I was young.
Císte – tea cake. Theres berries and raisins left seep in black tea. You then add this to the cake batch and bake it. My favourite was “Císte sméar dubh” or “Císte a’ Fhómhair” as my mother used to say which is tea cake made with blackberries picked in autumn.
Toirtín – tart like apple or rhubarb tart.
Bannóg/Scóna – Irieh versions of the Scone.
Bairnín breac – a type of cake made with raisins. Traditionally baked at Halloween and had a ring thrown into the baked mix. Whoever found the ring was said to be married within the next year.
I’m going to add this next one but its not baked its fried in butter, but you need flour and eggs to make it.
Bacstaí – Boxty aka Irish potato cake. It is one of my favourite childhood memories. Eating boxty. I’d have eaten it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea 🤣
In Ireland we don’t eat pastry pie. Pie here means pasty pie like cottage pie
Oost-Vlaamse vlaaien are from the region I grew up in and very specific to that area alone.
My Mam makes them when I come over from Ireland c:
I would recommend trying to bake a traditional Skånsk Äppelkaka (Scanian Apple Cake) from southern Sweden. It is kind of like a fruit pie with apples and breadcrumbs, and very delicious as well as quite easy to make. It is most traditionally served with vanilla sauce, but can also be served with vanilla ice cream. Note, if you want try and bake it – “kavring” is a dark rye bread from Scania, but another dark rye bread can be used as well. The other ingredients should be quite easy to translate with some help from Google and Wikipedia. Also, temperatures are of course given in Celsius.
🇸🇪 Prinsesstårta
Prinsesstårta is one of the most stereotypical cakes in Sweden, and I’m so sick and tired of it.
It can be nice, but every time there’s something to celebrate or reasons to show gratification on a workplace, the boss sends someone out to buy a bunch of cakes, and it’s always a bunch of (relatively cheap) store-bought mass-produced princess cakes, which always tastes the same and feels so utterly boring and uninspired.
At some workplaces I’ve been “forced” to eat princess cake at least once per month, and the standard cheap ones are pretty much just layers of sponge cake, cream, and custard, and then everything covered by a green marzipan lid and powdered sugar.
Some at least has a little bit of jam in once of the layers, for some flavor, or occasionally some banana in one of the layers, but the latter is more reserved for a bananstubbe, which is basically the same type of cake, but with yellow instead of green marsipan, painted with some chocolate, just to resemble a banana.
Then there’s also the individual miniature version of the princess cake, the grodbakelse (frog cake), which has cuteness going for itself. It’s essentially more or less the same, but cute and funny. 😉
I would usually much rather see a classic strawberry cake (with tons of strawberries), or even better something with many different types of fruit, and perhaps sometimes also chocolate – Pretty much anything else than a princess cake.
The princess cake can absolutely be enjoyed by people who already haven’t been “forced” to eat it and fake gratefulness every, or every other, month for several years… as a “bribe” to feel appreciated, and not demand a better wage or some real benefits and improvements on the workplace.
Then there’s also another alternative that’s sometimes served at workplaces, for the same reasons:
Smörgåstårta or “Sandwich cake” (google pictures, there are tons of different types and varieties).
It’s however not a dessert style cake, but rather a light meal, or something had instead of a meal.
May be served during a coffee break, or teatime.
Filled with mayo and sourcream, plus either pâté and cold cut meats, or cured fish (like smoked salmon, etc), fish roe and various seafood, and then topped with some green leaves, cucumbers, tomatoes, boiled eggs, etc… and either cold cut meats and perhaps also cheese. or shrimps and cured or cold-smoked fish, or everything in a chaotic mix.
I can still appreciate those, both since there’s a lot more variety of those, and because they’re a break from the usually expected princess cake.
Streuselkuchen – with or without fruit
Bienenstich
Donauwelle
Gedeckter Apfelkuchen (covered Apple pie)
Russischer Zupfkuchen
Mohnkuchen (poppy seed cake)
Edit: Fun Fact about Russischer Zupfkuchen. Most Germans think it’s a traditional cake, but it has only existed since 1994. Back then the company Dr. Oetker introduced a baking mix for that very cake with a campaign that insinuated that it’s a traditional German cake everyone’s grandma already made and we collectively thought that it’s just our grandma who doesn’t make it. So we happily accepted that delicious concoction of cheesecake and chocolate dough as a very traditional recipe. Now you can get it in bakeries, cafés, family gatherings etc. Many have dropped the Russian part of the name a couple of years ago, so now it’s often only Zupfkuchen.
Bakewell pudding. Not to be confused with Bakewell tart which is a bit different and not quite as nice imo.
If you strictly mean tarts and pies, then Bakewell tart, treacle tart, and apple pie are three very traditional ones. We have a lot of puddings and cakes as well though.
It’s not well known but should be pretty easy to make and it’s really good and a bit different – ajdov krapec. It’s made out of a thin layer of buckwheat dough and farmers cheese and sour cream.
Well known Slovenian deserts would be various kinds of potica (difficult to make right), prekmurska gibanica, kremšnita and a hundred or so kinds of sweet štruklji and krapi/krafi. There’s also pohorska omleta and Ljubljana cheese pancakes with tarragon.
In Cork in Ireland, we have Chester cake, red velvet cake’s daddy. It’s a red velvet cake centre, a layer of soft sponge above and below with soft strawberry and chocolate icing on top
The Pastel de Nata is definitely the most popular tart from Portugal, both within and outside the country. And in my opinion it’s at its best when you keep it simple and don’t mess too much with the formula. Whenever I see other countries sell them with berries, chocolate, nuts, or whatever I can’t help but feel they make the pastry worse. It’s definitely a case of less is more (at least that’s what I think).
A more underrated tart would be the Pastel de Tentúgal. Apparently the dough is supposed to be stretched very, very thin.
And from Sintra, Travesseiros and Queijadas are also great treats that kind of get overshadowed by the Pastel de Nata.
You already had pies from my country, but some small stuff would be stroopwafels (dense circular waffles filled with caramel), Appelflappen (small apple pockets in triangle shape), and a tompouce.
Look them up, they are nice. And the basic classics in our country.
Blueberry pie with oat-butterscotch crust is my favourite Swedish classic pie
The most popular though is probably rhubarb pie
In Sweden we always serve pie with vanilla sauce or vanilla mousse (vaniljvisp)
Something that’s a bit more special (and really delicious) though it’s not a pie, is Swedish cheesecake, ostkaka . You make it by making fresh cheese curds, adding sugar, cream, eggs, sweet almonds, and a little bit of bitter almond. It’s then baked in the oven and served with whipped cream and your favourite jam 🙂
Hjónabandssæla (happy marriage cake). Not technically a pie, but very pie-esque
Your shop sounds like heaven! Pies from around the world? I envy your customers.
May I introduce you to: Stuffed Speculaas Pie ( gevulde speculaastaart), a spiced dough with a smooth almond paste centre. Crunchy edges, soft centre and the taste of winter spices.
The most common desert pie in Sweden is blueberry. The most common savory pie is ham and cheese.
Apple crumble, blackberry crumble, bread and butter pudding.
Black Forest Gateau is from Germany, it’s delicious. In German it’s Schwartzwalder.
Hasn’t been mentioned.
Soparnik.
It’s a savoury pie from Croatia made of two sheets of dough and in between filled with swiss chard and garlic.
Karelian pies are probably the more famous but it’s more savoury than sweet, ideally served with boiled, chopped eggs mixed with butter.
Linse from Denmark. Apparantly we invented that specific type?
Cremelinser
Most well know tart from northern Ireland is Iris Robinson!
Was zum fick ist eine Linzertorte? Hier gibt’s Riwwelkuche mit Zwetschgen!
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Curly top tart (Kräsupea) link
Rhubarb cake (Rabarberikook) link
Quark cake with Juubeli mix (Juubeli-kohupiimakook) link
Not exactly sure what a Tiroler cake is but it might not be from Switzerland because Tyrol is split between Austria and Italy.