Pretty much everywhere you go in Leipzig, you’re going to see Leipziger lerche. These little pastries are named for the songbirds — larks, or lerche in German — that used to be a favorite of the marketplaces here.
Of course, nowadays, there’s no bird: just a shortcrust pastry and an almond paste filling. When I was in Leipzig last year reporting this story, I took it upon myself to taste… probably far too many of these.
At its very essence, a lerche has a shortbread crust and an x of shortbread on top — this is supposed to symbolize the string used to truss the birds before they were cooked.
While they don’t need to have any filling aside from almond paste, some bakers place a bit of red fruit inside to symbolize (depending on who you ask) either the heart or the blood of the bird.
As un-typical as this lerche was, it was my favorite one: it was stuffed, not with almond paste, but with a pistachio version.
It also had black cherry jam inside, which — along with looking quite a bit more like blood than a piece of fruit — offset the kind of cloying sweetness of this pastry quite nicely.
Of course, there are tons of other versions to try, including spiced ones for Christmas and even chocolate versions. They’re really hard to find outside of Leipzig, but if you ever find yourself there — or in Saxony — go ahead and give them a try!
If Saxony isn’t on your to-visit list quite yet, these would be fairly easy to replicate by taking a basic bakewell tart recipe (jam optional, of course) and baking it in individually sized molds. Just be sure to save enough shortcrust pastry for the x on top.