I thought moving to Switzerland would be similar to moving to France, meaning I would be surrounded by sweets left and right. But, unfortunately (or, rather, fortunately), that was not the case. I'm not exactly sure how I got the impression that Switzerland would be a sort of candyland. Maybe because Switzerland is a country known for its abundance of chocolate. And there is lots of chocolate. It's everywhere. But what I was really looking for (and still am!) was pastries and cakes along the lines of those from Sprüngli, which I had already known from my frequent visits to Zürich. Zürich not only has a big Sprüngli café, it also has lots of shops within Zürich. Sadly, Sprüngli only has a small shop at the train station here in Basel. The other day I finally treated myself to some of their mini pastries. I had held off on trying them because who could be satisfied from eating just one? Besides that they are pretty pricey. But nevertheless I decided to try them. What I got was a mini cake with a truffle topping and a mini coffee eclair. Both were very good. However, I decided my favorite eclairs were those with plain pastry cream and chocolate glaze on top.
After having searched the downtown area for suitable sweet tooth satisfiers, I finally came across Confiserie Bachmann. Now I find myself going there almost every weekend to get one of my new favorite pastries: a chocolate macaroon (Schoggimakrone), made of what I assume to be hazelnuts, sugar, and egg whites and filled with chocolate cream (that unfortunately sometimes has an alcoholic flavor to it). But their chocolate buns (Schoggiweggli), a yeast dough with chocolate chunks in it, are very good as well. Both types of pastries are pretty common here.
Another common pastry is the Osterflädli. It's a little pie with a filling made of cream, milk, eggs, sugar and some semolina. So far I've only tried the ones from the bakery chain Sutter and it was pretty yummy. It has chocolate bits in it!
I have actually seen a few other confiseries and cafés I need to try. So hopefully there will be an update soon.
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