Bishop’s Bread

The tradition of baking bishop's bread has been proven to go back to the first half of the 19th century. Recipes for bishop’s bread can be found in Austrian and German cookbooks of the early 19th century; they describe the production of biscuit dough (sometimes also Viennese mass) with zibeben (dried grapes straight from the vine with pips), pinched almonds, and zest from citrus peel. In the middle of the same century, recipe modifications became popular with new ingredients such as pignolias (pine nuts), pistachios, aranzini (orange), and others; the dough remains a sponge cake. While the original recipe is still unknown, as you can see, the history of Bishop’s bread isn’t really clear — but it’s likely from Croatia. From what I read, the chocolate ingredient was introduced in the 1950s and the recipe proliferated in the 1960s, at least in the US.

Monasteries and religious communities originally baked it on St. Martin, at Christmas, but also at Easter and gave it out to the people, thus its name. The sweet bread made from biscuit dough was extremely popular. It is therefore not surprising that it found its way in many variations into cookbooks in South Tyrol, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Germany.

Some Bishop’s Bread resembles a fruitcake, but lighter, with dried fruit and nuts (most of the recipes I have seen on the Internet with fruit and nuts, also include chocolate chips or chopped chocolate.), and other recipes seem to have a foundation that is more of a simple cake with a crumb topping, like a coffee cake.