Presnitz is a delicious Trieste specialty characterized by its visual appearance – similar to a rolled sausage. When cut open, the inner swirls become visible, revealing a dough made from flour, sugar, eggs, butter, milk and lemon juice. Then a layer of filling consisting of butter, sugar, raisins, cinnamon and nuts such as almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and pine nuts. It is believed that presnitz originated in a competition for the best sweet to present to Princess Sissa, the wife of Emperor Francis Joseph, when they first visited Trieste.
It is a typical Easter dessert, actually the circular shape of the ring has a symbolic meaning of the Christian tradition – the crown of thorns of Christ. Another typical Easter dessert – pinca, represents a sponge soaked in vinegar offered to Christ on the cross. Pellegrino Artusi, in the famous cookbook “Science in the kitchen and the art of good eating” from 1891, defined it as a “German dessert” to indicate its Austro-Hungarian origin. Another source reports that the dessert is considered a specialty of Trieste, although it originates from Castagnevizze (Kostanjevica na krasu). However, the typical dessert of a Slovenian city is made from unleavened crumbly dough, not puff pastry.
This cake is reminiscent of winter delicacies that are made throughout Central and Northern Europe, which means that it is an excellent addition primarily to the Easter table, but it is also served at Christmas. It can be made from homemade or store-bought puff pastry, which should be rolled into thin pieces. There are a lot of variations and if we look at the recipes for presnitz, they differ somewhat.
There are beautiful stories about the origin of presnitz. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Trieste experienced great economic growth and life was easy. In order to welcome the Austro-Hungarian empress Sissi with dignity, the city was specially decorated, and a pastry shop in the city center decided to create a special cake for this occasion, and the confectioners wrote “If you travel the world, come back here” next to the cake. In the end, the cake was named “Preis Prinzessin” (Princess’s Prize). The people of Trieste were delighted with the cake and soon gave it the local name – Presnitz. Another link is circulating that the recipe is attributed to the place Prisečnica in the former Czech Republic, which was flooded after the creation of a hydroelectric basin.
I asked the question: is there a difference between gubana and similar spiral pastries from Trieste, putizza and presnitz, or are they just regional names for the same dessert? I learned that the wealth of Trieste during the Habsburg era brought an increased availability of exotic imports to the city such as spices, nuts and liqueurs. Presnitz was considered a more refined pastry and usually contained a much longer list of ingredients than its similar counterparts.
Where to try preisnitz
As a dessert with a thousand varieties, presnitz can satisfy everyone and no one, because each pastry shop works according to its own recipe. It is a dessert that started from poverty, but whose filling in bourgeois homes was gradually enriched with additives from abroad: perhaps with exotic elements such as cocoa and candied fruit or with more expensive ingredients such as biscuits and honey. In Trieste, therefore, preisnitz can be found in almost all pastry shops (pasticceria). Here is a short list of the most famous. Caffe Pasticceria Ducale stands out (See mapu – Viale Trieste 174, Trieste)
- Pirona – Largo della Barriera Vecchia, 12
- Viezzoli – Via della Cassa di Risparmio, 7
- Sircelli – Via Giacinto Gallina, 2
- Eppinger – Via Dante Alighieri, 2
- La Bomboniera – Via Trenta Ottobre, 3
- Giorgi – Via Giosuè Carducci, 14
- Cadenaro – Via Pierluigi da Palestrina, 4
- Jerian – Via di Cavana, 10
- April – Via S. Nicolò, 18
How to prepare presnitz
Put flour, 200 g of sugar, 1 whole egg and 1 yolk in a deep bowl. Mix everything together until we get a compact dough. Form the dough into a ball, wrap it in aluminum foil and keep it in the cold for 1 hour. Wash the raisins and soak them in wine and rum. Roughly chop the almonds, walnuts and pine nuts, then slice the candied fruit. Mix all this in a deep bowl with ground cloves, remaining sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, a pinch of salt, breadcrumbs and mix well, then add the raisins and the wine and rum in which they were soaked. We roll out the dough to a few millimeters, giving it a rectangular shape, and then pour the prepared ingredients into the middle of the dough, giving it an oblong shape like salami. Close the dough, and “glue” the edges especially well. Place the dough in a spiral on a greased baking sheet, and place the edge on the bottom side. Melt the remaining butter with the egg yolk: coat the surface of the cake, then bake in a preheated oven at 180° for about 1 hour. Let it cool before serving.
Time required for preparation: 2h 40 min
Ingredients:
500 g flour
350 g of sugar
250 g of butter
150 g of raisins
150 g of walnuts 150 g of bread crumbs 100 g of almonds 1 dcl of sweet wine 1 dcl of rum 1 dcl rum
100 g pine nuts
100 g of candied lemon
50 g of orange
50 g of cinnamon
1 pinch of nutmeg
3 eggs
3 cloves
salt to taste
