City Pastry Souvenir · Shortcrust Tart
Leipziger Lerche
Photo: de:User:Lordus / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
The pastry is a stand-in for an actual songbird — larks were once trapped and roasted as a Leipzig delicacy until a 19th-century hunting ban forced bakers to reinvent the treat without the bird.
A round shortcrust shell is filled with marzipan, almonds and a cherry, then topped with two crossed strips of pastry. Leipzig bakeries and market stalls sell them individually as a portable, sweet street snack.
Why it's made this way: When King Albert of Saxony banned lark hunting in 1876 to protect the songbird population, Leipzig's bakers repurposed the name into a pastry so the local specialty wouldn't disappear.
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