Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The birthday of the Sultan

No, this is not some celebration of a random dead sultan of the former Ottoman Empire or whatever.  Today is the birthday of one of our colleagues whose name happens to be Hungarian and is derived from the word sultan....Zoltan to be exact.  It's kind of like the German word Kaiser and the Russian word Tsar being derived from Caesar.  (Did you know that?)  Today was the 9th anniversary of Zoltan's 25th birthday so we fired up the vocal chords and sang a rousing chorus of that popular birthday song.  Since it is not yet in the public domain we hope we won't be fingered to pay royalties but our song fest is now our second video on cakehour.com.
It's a pear tart from Vienna Bakery!  Yay!

Zoltan got to pick the cake/pastry for his birthday and he settled for a frequent favorite...the Pear and Marzipan tart from the Vienna Bakery in Barrington, RI.  (Marzipan is that almond paste that you find much more frequently in Europe.) We like the this particular item a lot and have had several of them.  It is relatively light, not too sweet and always tastes fresh.  The marzipan and the pear make a nice combination and the only down side is it never seems big enough for the fans to get their fill.  We do have one or two naysayers who stay away from this because..."I don't like Marzipan."  Aw, who cares about them. This is good and those that count like it! 

For anyone who wishes to further indulge in some Marzipan treats two of the best are Schwermer, http://www.schwermer.de/, originally from the city of Königsberg the former capital of East Prussia now the city of Kaliningrad in Russia where they are NOT known for their marzipan. One of Schwermer's treats are marzipan potatoes which are fun and good.

And another is Niederegger, http://www.niederegger.de/en/, from the famous Hanseatic city of Lübeck.  Their chocolate covered marzipan is terrific and usually flavored with something containing alcohol!



But enough about the Marzipan...Happy Birthday to Zoltan!
Attractive!
Pear on top of a delicate cake that includes marzipan!

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