Five Sweets with Surprising Stories

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Text to type: A useful way to understand an unusual sweet is to look at three things: its source, the change made to familiar ingredients, and the final result. Sachertorte comes from Vienna. Franz Sacher, a teenage cook, is said to have made it in 1832 for Prince Metternich and his guests. The cake contains butter, chocolate, eggs, flour, and sugar. Apricot jam is placed on the chocolate sponge, and chocolate glaze covers the outside. This fruit-and-chocolate combination is its surprising change. Hotel Sacher makes the cake with two sponge layers, while the Demel pastry shop long used one. The shops even fought in court about the name and layers. The case ended in 1963, but their cakes still have different seals.

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Text to type: Spaghettieis comes from Mannheim, Germany. Dario Fontanella created it in 1969 after learning that a chestnut dessert could be pushed through a press. He used a press for making German noodles to turn vanilla ice cream into long, thin strands. These strands sit on whipped cream and look like spaghetti. The visual trick continues with the toppings. Strawberry sauce looks like tomato sauce, while grated white chocolate, coconut, or almonds look like parmesan cheese. Fontanella’s first version used three ice cream colours, but he later chose vanilla, strawberry puree, and grated white chocolate. Some children initially cried because they thought they had received pasta instead of ice cream. Fontanella did not patent his invention, so it spread to many German ice cream shops.

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Text to type: Pavlova is named after the Russian dancer Anna Pavlova and is linked to her tours of Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. Both countries claim the dessert. A New Zealand recipe for pavlova cake was published in 1929, and an Australian story says Bert Sachse made one at a Perth hotel in 1935. Its structure is more unusual than an ordinary flour-based cake. Egg whites and caster sugar are beaten into a foam called meringue. Cooks may add vinegar or lemon juice, cornflour, and vanilla before baking it slowly. The result has a crisp shell but a soft, marshmallow-like centre. Whipped cream and fruit are added on top. Kiwifruit is common in New Zealand versions, while passionfruit is common in Australia. It is also a Christmas dessert there because Christmas comes during summer.

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Text to type: Pastel de nata is a Portuguese egg custard tart, often finished with cinnamon and icing sugar. Its story is connected to the Jeronimos Monastery in Belem, Lisbon. Monasteries used large numbers of egg whites to starch clothes, so cooks had yolks left over. They turned those yolks into cakes and custards—a practical source that produced a famous result. After Portugal’s Liberal Revolution of 1820, religious houses were closed. The monks sold tarts at a nearby sugar refinery to raise money. When the monastery closed in 1834, its recipe was sold to the refinery. The owners opened Fabrica de Pasteis de Belem in 1837. Their family still runs the shop near the monastery, and the original recipe is kept in a secret room. The tarts are eaten hot from the oven.

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Text to type: Halo-halo is a cold mixed dessert from the Philippines. Its name means “mix-mix,” which explains how it is eaten. Sweet ingredients are placed at the bottom of a tall glass. Crushed or shaved ice goes above them, and evaporated milk or coconut milk is poured on top. The eater then mixes the layers with a long spoon. One glass can contain ube jam made from purple yam, sweetened beans or chickpeas, coconut strips, sago pearls, agar jelly, taro, fruit in syrup, flan, and toasted young rice called pinipig. Some versions also include ube ice cream. An early form used mung beans in syrup with crushed ice, milk, and sugar. Halo-halo is unusual because ingredients that may seem separate—beans, jelly, yam, ice, and milk—become one colourful, cold spoonful.

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