Konditorei is the German word for a pâtisserie

Pâtisserie

A pâtisserie is the type of French or Belgian bakery that specializes in pastries and sweets. In both countries it is a legally controlled title that may only be used by bakeries that employ a licensed maître pâtissier ....

 and confectionery

Confectionery

Confectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...

 shop. A Konditorei typically offers a wide variety of pastries

Pastry

Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked products are called "pastries."...

 and is like a little café. In Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 it is a very popular custom to go to a Konditorei to have a cake

Cake

Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet and enriched baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape...

 and some coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 or hot chocolate

Hot chocolate

Hot chocolate is a heated beverage typically consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and sugar...

 mid-afternoon. Cakes vary from cream cakes to apple strudel to petit four

Petit four

A petit four is a small confection generally eaten at the end of a meal or served as part of dessert. The name is from the French petit four, meaning "small oven"....

s.

Business profile

Konditorei sell pastries. Regularly they also offer a selection of different coffees and soft drinks, and many even carry beer and spirits. The main difference to a restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

 (besides aspects of the assortment) is the business hours.

Many bigger Konditorei also serve ice cream

Ice cream

Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...

 and iced tart

Tart

A tart is a baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base with an open top not covered with pastry. The pastry is usually shortcrust pastry; the filling may be sweet or savoury, though modern tarts are usually fruit-based, sometimes with custard....

s.

Business times are usually from morning to late afternoon (e.g., 9 a.m. to 6 pm) on working days and in the afternoon on Sundays. The recent tendency to stretch opening hours also takes place in this business, especially in downtowns and shopping malls. These shops are now a growing business, whilst small shops in remote areas are a dying one since the latter half of the 20th century.

Term

A Konditorei puts emphasis on the artistic aspect of the trade and does not produce breads, thus differs from a bakery. The craft developed when particular bakers specialised in the creation of sweet bread to which candied fruits and other sweet ingredients were added. The origin of the word Konditor (the Konditorei’s baker) stems from the Latin word candire, which stands for “candying of fruits”. Another derivation is lat. conditura, ae, f (condio) = to concoct (food), preservation (of fruits)

Lebkuchen

The profession of the Konditor developed from that of the baker. Once the bakers of medieval times (15th century) mastered the art of baking bread, some started to rarefy the dough with honey, dried fruits and spices. These specialists called themselves Lebküchler, Lebküchner or Lebzelter. They founded a guild in 1643 in the area in and around Nürnberg. At the same time, the Lebkuchen bakers ran a second trade using wax, a side product of honey: they became chandlers, supplying churches and private households with artistic candles, wax figures and pictures made of wax. They carved wooden molds themselves and used these to pour magnificent pictures made of wax. A few Konditoreien practised the sophisticated art of the chandlers until recent times. The Lebküchner were turned to confectioners later and finally became Konditoren.

Sugar and spices from the Orient

The maritime trade brought spices and sugar from the Orient to the famous harbour towns of Genoa and Venice. Although sugar had an immense appeal, only the rich were privileged to consume it. The profession of confectioner was related to that of the pharmacist because the trade with sugar was exclusive to pharmacists. The German word “Konfekt” (English: confection) to describe sweets stems from the language of the drug makers, which were also called confectionari.

Production of marzipan

In the 14th century, the Venetians introduced marzipan, a confection made from almonds, sugar and rose water, to central Europe. It was an ideal material for moulding magnificent pictures made from marzipan, which were artistically painted with plant colouring and often decorated with gold leaf.

Chocolate in the Konditorei

At the start of the 19th century, chocolate first made its way to Germany, after the ladies of the upper classes in Spain, Italy and France had long been used to a daily cup of hot chocolate. When the Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten

Coenraad Johannes van Houten

Coenraad Johannes van Houten was a Dutch chemist and chocolate maker known for the treatment of cocoa mass with alkaline salts to remove the bitter taste and make cocoa solids more water-soluble; the resulting product is still called "Dutch process" chocolate...

 managed to press out the cocoa mass, the additional ingredients cocoa butter

Cocoa butter

Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, pure edible vegetable fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, biscuits, and baked goods, as well as some pharmaceuticals, ointments, and toiletries...

 and cocoa powder

Cocoa solids

Cocoa solids are the low-fat component of chocolate. When sold as an end product, it may also be called cocoa powder, cocoa, and cacao....

 were created. The chocolate thinned with cocoa butter was used to pour a variety of figures and painting cakes with cocoa powder became popular. The trade of the “Chocolatier”, a Konditor specialised in working with chocolate, was born. Chocolate now played a major role in the Konditorei. A good example is the chocolate cake created by Franz Sacher

Franz Sacher

Franz Sacher was an Austrian-Jewish confectioner, best known as the inventor of the world-famous chocolate cake, the Sachertorte....

, who was the chocolate cook for Klemens von Metternich in Vienna in 1832.

Pastries

The abundance of sugar through the native sugar beet in the 19th century lead to the development of cakes and pastries, with focus taken off decorative art. Light sponge cakes, almond pastries, apple strudel or milk-cream strudel

Milk-cream strudel

The milk-cream strudel is a traditional Viennese strudel. It is a popular pastry in Austria and in many countries in Europe that once belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire...

, Gugelhupf (Bundt Cake), and cream cakes were served with then modern drinks such as coffee, tea and chocolate.