Almond Horn

Almond Horn
P.S. Suisse, $2.85

Langley, Washington is not so much small as concentrated:  you could drive in one end and out the other in about 45 seconds, or you could pull over and spend all day exploring bookshops, cafes, spas, boutiques, the world's best-organized thrift store, and, at the far end of a tiny pedestrian mall, the P.S. Suisse bakery.  

Originally from Ligerz in western Switzerland, Peter Boden served a 3-year apprenticeship in Davos then worked as a confectioner and pastry chef in hotels and restaurants around Europe.  After moving to America, he first worked in Illinois, then Michigan, then relocated again to Colorado--as much for the skiing as for the kitchens.  Some of the framed memorabilia on the walls at P.S. Suisse comes from this period, including a feature story on the Vail Grand Marnier Chef's ski race, with a picture of Peter schussing down a slopes in apron and toque.   

After several years as the co-owner of Vail's Alpenrose restaurant (est. 1975), Peter took some time off to concentrate on producing his sought-after chocolate sculptures and paintings...and somehow ended up in Langley, WA, in a tiny shop at the end of a small mall.  I would've liked to ask about that, but the lunch rush crowding the bakery's few tables put a damper on investigation.  

Peter's wife Sandra covers the front of the house, hustling plates and extracting pastries from the crowded cases.  The cookie choices include spitzbuben (or "rascals," two-layer sandwiches with jam filling peeking out through holes in the upper cookie), linzer (similar to spitzbuben but made with hazelnut dough), shortbread Orcas painted with milk or dark chocolate, and almond horns (above) wrought from mildly sweet marzipan dough, dark chocolate, and a glassy sugar-egg-almond glaze.  There are also strudels, tarts, danishes, Napoleons, croissants, and a shelf full of breads.  

As the shop's sole baker and cook, Peter has plenty to do in back.  In addition to keeping the cases and bread rack full and whipping up lunch plates, there are the seasonal specials.  During my visit Peter was hard at work filling orders for Engadin nusstorte, a shortcrust pastry stuffed with walnuts, honey, and cream. A traditional holiday-time treat, the Engadin is named for the valley surrounding St. Moritz and is a soft-spoken reminder of the poverty endured by generations of Swiss villagers; the Engadin recipe probably spread as bakers went further and further afield in search of work.  
 
P.S. Suisse
221 2nd St #12A
Langley, WA
360-221-9434 

 

Niederegger Eierliqueur Marzipan

Niederegger Eierliqueur Marzipan
Marina Market, $5.50

Although it looks like a typical convenience store from the outside, the Marina Market in downtown Poulsbo is more of a candy convention center.  Begun in 1998 with the intent of providing the area's many Scandinavian, Dutch, and European residents with the tastes of home, Marina Market offers a wide range of specialty food, with an emphasis on sweets.  The shelves of the "Licorice Shrine" groan under the aggregate weight of nearly 400 different kinds, sourced from all over the world (this selection which may soon earn Marina Market a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records).

The Market also carries a vast stock of old-fashioned and foreign candies and chocolate bars, including a range from Niederegger, a renowned German confectioner in business since the early 19th century.  Niederegger is particularly famous for its marzipan, a paste of almonds and sugar that can stand on its own in sculpted sweets, or act as a filling in pastries or bars.  Inside the bittersweet chocolate bar above, marzipan is combined with eierliqueur (aka avocaat), a German egg-based liquor.

Marina Market
18882 Front St NE
Poulsbo, WA

360 / 779-8430

Boehms Chocolates

Cherry Cordial (left)

Motzartkugel (right)

Boehms Candies

Calling all producers of romantic biopics:  wake up, smell the chocolate, and give the late Julius Boehm the big-screen treatment he so richly deserves!

Born in 1897, Boehm was a Swiss-Austrian who represented Austria in the 1924 Paris Olympics and was a torch-carrier in 1936--the same year he fled the Nazi invasion by skiing over the Alps to Switzerland.  Boehm eventually immigrated to the US and arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1941.  

As if all that weren't epic enough, Boehm was also the grandson of a confectioner, from whom he learned a thing or two about treats.  In 1934 he and a friend opened the Candy Kitchen in Ravenna, a quiet residential neighborhood on the north side of Seattle.  In 1956, Boehm moved his business to Issaquah, where the surrounding Cascade range recalled the mountains of his childhood.  Next to the shop he built a replica 12th century Alpine Chapel, dedicated to the memory of lost mountaineers.  Boehm himself was one of the lucky ones, safely summiting Mt. Rainier for the third time at the age of 80, just three years before his death in 1981.  

The business Boehm built thrives to this day, cranking out an enormous variety of filled and flavored chocolates.  For the cherry cordials, ripe cherries are soaked in brandy for nearly a month, then double-dipped in milk or dark chocolate.  Mozartkugeln are Boehms' signature sweet, a dollop of soft marzipan blanketed in creamy chocolate ganache, encased in a chocolate shell, and dressed in foil imprinted with Mozart's silhouette.   Honoring the centennial of the composer's death, the Mozartkugel was invented in Salzburg in 1890 by one of Julius Boehms' ancestors, and could itself be the subject of a pretty gripping movie; the confection was a fad that has since become a classic--and the subject of lawsuits, industrial innovation, and consumer obsession.  

Boehms Candies

255 NE Gilman Blvd

Issaquah, WA

425/392-6652

Dutch Bakery

Dollar Roll
Dutch Bakery, $2.25

Sometimes stepping through a doorway can be almost like traveling back in time; think of 1950s diners, Gothic churches, Colonial Williamsburg, or Cracker Barrel restaurants.

Particularly evocative are those rare places that owe their anachronistic atmosphere to genuine continuity, rather than to revival, recreation, or re-enactment. Places like Victoria, BC's Dutch Bakery.

Funnily enough, when Dutch migrants Kees and Mable Schaddelee opened Dutch Bakery back in 1956, it was a high tech vision of the future. Unsatisfied with the commercial baking equipment available in Canada, Kees had the latest technology shipped over from Europe: ball-bearing rolling pins, a mechanical dough divider, a dough spreader capable of handling 2,000lbs per hour. His attention to innovation and detail extended to the retail area, which was fitted out with the best booths, stools, and display cases available--as well as Victoria's first air conditioning system.

Little has changed in subsequent years, but the Dutch's innovations have slowly mellowed into quaintness. The decor is the same, the recipes are the same, but what seems most significant is that many of the people are the same. Kees continued to bake until in his 70s and hung around the coffee shop up until his death at age 97. His four sons and several daughters-in-law joined the business, as did many of their children, four of whom now run the show. A few other non-Schaddelee employees have been with the bakery for more than 30 years.

The same holds true for the patrons. Although in its heyday the Dutch's coffee shop served about a thousand customers every weekday, patrons never felt rushed, and many made Dutch Bakery a daily or weekly habit. It's still one of those places where it seems like 90% of the people know--and like--each other.

On the strong recommendation of an elderly couple at the next table, I had a strawberry shortcake (only available in season) and the dollar roll, a signature sweet of rolled-up sponge and buttercream swaddled in housemade marzipan: soft, sweet, and surprisingly light. Other pastry options include Parliaments, Flying Saucers, Deer Legs, and Sacher Torte. Takeaway pastries, cakes, cookies and chocolates are also available, displayed in the Dutch's original wood and glass cases.

Dutch Bakery
718 Fort Street
Victoria, BC
250/385-1012

Marzipan Mold

Giving my beloved wooden sweet molds from Japan a run for their money is this slate mold from Germany, carved sometime in the 16th century. It depicts the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus, and was likely used to shape marzipan or gingerbread. It is in the collection of Paris' Museum of the Middle Ages.

John Nielsen's Authentic Danish Pastries

Pastry Potato

John Nielsen's, $3.50

Robin Williams once noted that you don't see a lot of happy people at a happy hour, but he certainly wasn't talking about happy hour at John Nielsen's, a Danish-style scratch bakery established in 1965. Between 2:30 and 3:30 the purchase of an espresso drink comes with your choice of pastry (including danish and snitter) on the house. Since Nielsen's offerings are made daily and without preservatives, this is a smart way to keep the goods moving while they're in peak condition.

Not part of the happy hour special, but worth the extra outlay, are more elaborate cakes and pastries such as the tosca, the Sarah Bernhardt, and the multi-story marzipan cake (fake but appealing display model pictured below). Their most popular item is the "potato" (above), an outsized profiterole bursting with whipped cream, swaddled in a blanket of marzipan, and dirtied up with a heavy dusting of cocoa powder.

Having alway previously thought of trompe l'oeil pastry potatoes as more of a German thing, I'm always surprised to run into them in Seattle's Scandinavian bakeries. Also surprising, the fact that so many pastries I would normally refer to as "danish" are sold in these bakeries under the name wienerbrod, or "Vienna bread".

It turns out that this is another of my beloved instances of history being inscribed in our sugary treats. In 1850, Danish bakery workers went on strike, leading bakery owners to import labor from nearby countries, including Austria. The foreign bakers brought with them their own traditions, which merged with existing Danish recipes and gave rise to many of the pastries that we know and love today.

Nielsen's Pastries

520 Second Ave W

Seattle, WA

206/282-3004