Christmas is coming soon, many people start planning of their table decorations for Christmas and Christmas gifts. One traditional thing for Christmas is gingerbread, the most known gingerbread with a bear motif in Switzerland is from Appenzell:
The sweet little bear of Appenzell contains almond paste called marzipan and honey. Let us take you there to see how this touristic town looks like:
First of all, it is located in the canton of Innerrhoden where the capital is Appenzell. The town hall is in the old town of the city center:
In this town, there are many restaurants, bakery and cheese shops with nice painting decorations on the exterior walls:
Some paintings and decorations are related to the fairy tales:
Most bakery shops in the old town sell mostly traditional swiss pastry. This bakery shop has an unusual name, "Three Kings" :
It is likely to find restaurants and shops in Switzerland with the name of an animal:
The coat of arms of this town is a bear which can be seen everywhere at the buildings together with the national flag:
For the cheese lovers, never miss the local cheese from this town, this shop is not hard to find:
Another typical shop that is designed to attract the tourists, you can find everything to make a cheese fondue from Appenzell:
The river that runs through the town is called "Sitter" :
The bridge is also decorated with both flags:
Let's move on to our gingerbread from this town called "Biber" which means spice bread with honey and nuts, either hazelnut or almond fillings in Switzerland. The word "Biber" comes from "Biberzelten" or "Bimenzelte", which themselves are derived from the latin word "pigmentum" which is the name for all spices (pimento). A "zelte" is a flat pastry or bread. The big flat round ones are called "Biberfladen":
This traditional version is rather big, probably for a whole family. It contains honey and hazelnut:
This big one has less amount of fillings in comparison to the smaller version called "Appenzeller Biberli" which is often sold in single packs:
This one has a bear motif as a decoration design for this brand only and even sold in smaller version. It contains a lot of honey and almond fillings like other recipes in the old times since the flour was more expensive than fillings back then. For more detail, please read article: Biberli
Bear the little bear!
