If you have read my earlier posts about pretzels (The origin, The pretzel in the US, Baking pretzels), you know that the German Brezel can be sweet or salty, made with or without lye, with different herbs and toppings like cheese. It is the shape that gives the pretzel its name, not the dough.
In this post, I will take a look at sweet pretzels that are baked for different occasions in different regions of Germany.
Often the sale or handing out of pretzels is associated with religious holidays. While it is not clear how the pretzel and/or pretzel-shape was invented it is often connected with the church and religion as a Gebildgebäck (shaped bread). In earlier times, parishes handed out pretzels to the poor on special church holidays since the pretzel, baked with white flour, was a special treat.
Martinsbrezel
The most known pretzel that isn’t a Laugenbrezel is probably the Martinsbrezel, a sweet(ish) pretzel made from yeast dough, decorated with coarse sugar, and sold on St. Martin’s Day, November 11th.
St. Martin’s Day used to start a fastening period that lasted until Christmas and on November 11th people would take the opportunity to feast one last time. Martinsbrezel can be bought in any bakery around St. Martin’s Day in mostly Catholic regions like Upper Franconia and Rhineland.
In other regions, other yeast dough shapes are made for Martinstag: Stutenkerle (man with a pipe), Martinsgänse (geese), Martinshörnchen (little horn). To learn more about traditions around St. Martin’s Day, click here.
Neujahrsbrezel
A Neujahrsbrezel or New Year’s Day Pretzel is eaten on, you guessed it, New Year’s Day. The Neujahrsbrezel is normally sweet, made from yeast dough or milk dough, and is bigger than your normal pretzel. It can be between 30 – 100 cm (12 – 40″), often parts of it are braided and/or decorated with a depiction of the year.
In Baden in Swabia, children visit their godparents on New Year’s Day (or sometimes New Year’s Eve) to collect such a pretzel and some money. Generally speaking the pretzel will protect against hunger, sickness and bad luck.
In the Rhineland, those gigantic pretzels are eaten for breakfast on New Year’s Day and ordered ahead of time at the bakery. Its size also varies, and it might be decorated with almond slices or filled with marzipan.
Aldegundisbrezel
This sweet yeast pretzel is named after Saint Aldegundis and is normally sold only in January, and sometimes only on her Feast Day, January 30th. And it is very specific to the Koblenz region.
Aldegundis was born into a noble Merovingian family around 630 and died on January 30th, 684 (or 695 or 700). She was supposed to marry an English prince but she wanted to become a nun, having heard God’s voice. Aldegundis either ran away from her parents shortly before the wedding and lived like a hermit close to the river Sambre until her parents relented. Or she ran away from her betrothed after her parents had already died. Supposedly she was able to escape from him because an angel carried her over the river.
In another story, Aldegundis joined the monastery of bishop Armand of Maastricht in 651 and used her inheritance to found the double monastery for monks and nuns Maubeuge in what is now France. In order to find the right site to build the monastery, Aldegundis walked across the river.
In her work as a nun and later as the abbess, Aldegundis focused on helping the poor and the sick. She is considered a Nothelferin (Holy Helper) by the church and people pray to her in sickness and mortal danger.
How the pretzel came to be connected with Saint Aldegundis is not clear. Since pretzels were often given out to the poor on religious holidays, we can speculate that the connection was made because Aldegundis helped especially the poor during her life.
Faschingsbrezel
Faschingsbrezel are eaten during Fasching or Carnival. The pretzel is the same yeast dough like a Berliner or Krapfen, baked in fat and coated in sugar. The pretzel can be filled or plain.
Sweet pastries like these were normally fried in lard which needed to be used up before Lent started on Ash Wednesday because it wasn’t allowed to consume animal products during that time.
Sommertagsbrezel
Laetare (also called Freudensonntag, Rosensonntag or Totensonntag) is the Sunday halfway through lent (Mittfasten). It is celebrated mostly in the Catholic Church and with many, many different traditions varying from region to region.
One of these traditions, which also vary in detail, is the Sommertagszug (summer day parade) which banishes winter and welcomes spring. In many areas an effigy of winter, a snowman, is set on fire at the end of the procession. Sometimes a fight between summer and winter is enacted.
In the Kurpfalz (Electoral Palatinate, in the North West of Baden-Württemberg), the parade features sweet yeast pretzels on decorated sticks carried by children in the parade. Sometimes an egg is added to the stick, as you can see on the photos below. While every parade has marching bands who play traditional spring songs like “Alle Vögel sind schon da”, the most important song everybody sings along with is the Sommertagslied (summer day song). Not surprisingly, the text varies from region to region, often sung in dialect. “Strih, strah, stroh, der Sommerdag is do..“
When you watch the video below from the Sommertagszug in Weinheim in 1982, you can see the pretzels on a stick and also hear the Sommertagslied. The video and pictures are from Weinheim and Ladenburg.
Palmbrezel
As the name suggests, the Palmbrezel is connected to Palm Sunday which is the Sunday before Easter, starts the Karwoche (Holy Week), and commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Palm leaves were laid before him, and today in parts of Swabia and Tyrol processions on Palm Sunday take place. Children will carry a Palmstecken (palm stick) with a Palmbrezel to the church to have it blessed. In many Catholic regions, you will see children and adults with bouquets, often with willow branches and decorated with colored ribbons and/or eggs.
Sometimes, the children would receive a Palmbrezel from their godparents after the procession, in the Ries area this pretzel was called the Balumbrezg.
In the area around Ulm, a so-called Brezgenmarkt (pretzel market) took place on Palm Sunday in the Hungerbrunnental where three communities met: Heldenfingen, Altheim and Heuchlingen. A market is mentioned in writing for the first time in 1533 in the Ulmer Ratsprotokolle, and in 1844 the name “Brezgenmarkt” is used.
Other foods were sold, not just pretzels, and the market also functioned as a marriage market. Young men would give their girl-friends a pretzel on Palm Sunday, and they returned the favor a week later by giving them an Easter egg. The Brezgenmarkt still takes place every year, though without the marriage part, and welcomes around 35.000 visitors.
Even though Lent is not over by Palm Sunday, Palmbrezel are often made with eggs, raisins and sugar; sometimes they are also braided. While the pretzel is associated with Palm Sunday, in certain areas it can be bought from Ash Wednesday until Maundy Thursday.
Olgabrezel or Russische Brezel
The Olgabrezel or Russische Brezel (Olga pretzel or Russian pretzel) is made of puff pastry and short pastry (often with cacao) decorated with almond slices. The two doughs are usually wound like twine and then made into the pretzel shape.
The pretzel is well known in Stuttgart and parts of Württemberg. It gets its name from the Queen of Württemberg Olga who was the daughter of Czar Nicholas I and his wife Charlotte of Prussia. Olga was born in 1822 and married Karl, son of the King of Württemberg Wilhelm I, in 1846. In 1864, she became Queen of Württemberg. She used her position to promote (higher) education for girls and founded a children’s hospital. But she wasn’t only sponsoring these endeavors financially, she was involved personally.
Other than the pretzel, two apples (Herzogin Olga and Königin Olga), a park and a Lake Constance steamer were named after Olga of Württemberg.
Burger Brezel
The Burger Brezel is not exactly a sweet pretzel but in taste and consistency more like a zwieback, making it ideal for dunking into coffee. As you can see in the photo the knot is slung 4 or 5 times, and it often comes with a string so you can wear it around your neck. Children sometimes receive a pretzel necklace on their first day of school.
The name Burger comes from the Castle Burg by the river Wupper near the city of Solingen. It is said that the pretzel has been around for 200 years and its ingredients are “Wupper Wasser und Lehm” (water from the river Wupper and clay).
Another legend says that a French soldier gave the recipe to the baker family Hösterey in 1795 as a thank you for taking care of him.
The Burger Brezel is so known that a hiking trail is named after it (Brezel-Wanderweg) and a statue of a pretzel baker was set up in Solingen.
