Bear claw
Pastry with almond paste filling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A bear claw is a sweet pastry originating in the United States during the mid-1910s.[1][2][3] The name bear claw as used for a pastry is first attested in a 1914 newspaper ad for the Geibel German Bakery in Sacramento, California.
| |
| Type | Pastry, doughnut or fritter |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | United States |
| Main ingredients | Dough, almond paste |
| Ingredients generally used | Raisins |
In Denmark, a bear claw is referred to as a kam[4] and in Germany as Kamm. France also has an alternate version of that pastry: patte d'ours (meaning bear paw), created in 1982 in the Alps.
Origin and usage of term
The name bear claw as used for a pastry is first attested on March 13, 1914, in a newspaper ad for the Geibel German Bakery[1][5] in Sacramento, California.[6] According to the Sacramento Bee, no "prior reference to bear claws has been made public". Sacramento historian William Burg "cautioned against definitively crowning Sacramento as ground zero for bear claws".[5] By the next year, bear claws were on the breakfast menu at German-owned Hamburger's Los Angeles,[7][better source needed] which was then the largest department store west of Chicago.[citation needed]
The phrase is more common in Western American English,[8] and is included in the U.S. Regional Dialect Survey Results, Question #87, "Do you use the term 'bear claw' for a kind of pastry?"[9]
Ingredients and shape
Most Danishes include the same basic ingredients such as eggs, yeast, flour, milk, sugar, and butter.[4] The bear claw is also made with "sweet dough" which is "bread dough with more shortening than usual".[10] One of the differences between most Danishes, besides taste, is seen in their shape.[4] A bear claw is usually filled with almond paste,[11] and sometimes raisins, and often shaped in a semicircle with slices along the curved edge, or rectangular with partial slices along one side.[12] As the dough rises, the sections separate, evoking the shape of a bear's toes, hence the name.[13] A bear claw may also be a yeast doughnut in a shape similar to that of the pastry.[13]
Production
A bear claw can be made by hand or by machine.[14] Bear claw can be hand-made by using a bear claw cutter that was invented in 1950 by James Fennell.[15] A 1948 patent describes the process of assembling the bear claw as rolling out the dough, layering filling onto it, folding the dough over, cutting small incisions to create the claw-like look, and finally cutting the dough into separate pastries.[14] The pastry can be curved into a half-circle at this point, which causes the "toes" to separate.[16]
See also
- Banket, an almond-stuffed pastry from the Netherlands
- List of almond dishes
- List of pastries
- List of regional dishes of the United States