Zserbó

Zserbó is a Hungarian pastry made of thin dough layered with walnuts and apricot jam, with a chocolate coating on top. Cut into long slices, it shows alternating layers of light dough and brown filling. In a single slice, the tartness of the fruit, the richness of the walnuts and the bitterness of the chocolate come together.

Layering apricot and walnut

Apricot jam is spread on thinly rolled dough, and ground walnuts mixed with sugar are scattered over it. The sheets are stacked and baked, and chocolate is poured over the cooled top. The jam adds fruit flavor and holds the walnuts in place on the dough while binding the layers together and keeping them moist. Cutting it after it has cooled thoroughly makes each layer easier to see.

A 2013 resource presenting a pastry chef’s formula for zserbó divides a yeasted dough into three sheets and sandwiches apricot jam and sugared ground walnuts between them in two layers. Once baked and cooled, the pastry is removed from the pan and turned over, a thin layer of jam is spread on top, and it is then covered with chocolate.

The shop’s name and the pastry’s records

The name is associated with Gerbeaud, a pastry shop in Budapest. One story holds that it was created by Emil Gerbeaud, the Swiss-born confectioner whose name the shop bears, but the National Digital Archive of Hungary casts doubt on this story, noting that the pastry appears in cookbooks considerably later. On the other hand, culinary history research reports the discovery of a recipe titled “Gerbeaud slice” in a 1935 newspaper, in which apricot jam and walnuts are layered and covered with chocolate. This means a similar method had been printed even before the postwar cookbooks, but who created this pastry remains unknown.

Flódni, another pastry enjoyed for its layers, stacks separate fillings such as apple and poppy seed. In zserbó, apricot and walnut repeat between the layers of dough, and a chocolate top covers the whole pastry.

Glossary