There are probably very few people on this planet who don’t love pastries, so this popular dessert item should have its own holiday. The holiday is aptly named National Pastry Day, and it falls annually on December 9th. Anyone who enjoys eating a pastry now and then might want to mark this date on their calendar and make sure that they celebrate this sweet, sweet holiday.

The History of Pastries

Try as we might, we just couldn’t find the origin of National Pastry Day, so we thought that we’d research the origins of pastries themselves. This sweet dessert can be traced back to ancient Egypt thousands of years ago.

These early pastries weren’t sweet, however; they were more of a savory treat that was made using dough made from flour and water and then wrapped around some type of meat. The Phoenicians, Romans, and Greeks spread these early pastries all across the Mediterranean, and as they traveled, they began to evolve somewhat.

Although these pastries were still used to cover meats and sometimes fruit, they were lighter than the Egyptian pastries thanks to the addition of olive oil to the recipe. During the Middle Ages, shortening and butter were added to the recipe, and the resulting dough was used to make stiff pastries that were covered in butter to make them more palatable.

Over the next few centuries, Medieval cooks continued to refine the pastry-making process until 16th-century chefs created the first modern pastry analogs. As these pastries spread across Europe, regional varieties of these pastries developed. Over time, these would become a seemingly endless variety of different pastry types.

Some Popular Pastry Types

To show everyone just how many different types of pastries there are, we wanted to list all of them, but unfortunately, that’s not possible. So we settled for listing some of the more popular pastry types that are currently available.

Petit Fours
Pirozhki
Tompouce
Potica
Runeberg Torte
Sweet Pionono
Cream Puff Pastry
Whoopie Pie

Fun Facts About Pastries

Below are some of the most entertaining facts about pastries that we could find. Hopefully, these facts will enrich everyone’s appreciation for this holiday.

• Early donuts got their name because they were made in the size and shape of walnuts.
• Cops got their reputation for loving donuts because the only shops open during the early 1940s were donut shops.

How To Celebrate National Pastry Day

Of course, the only real way to celebrate National Pastry Day is by enjoying some of your favorite pastries. Fortunately, for all of us, there is an almost endless variety of different pastry types that can be enjoyed. And if a person wants to snap a picture of their favorite pastry, they can then post it on social media using the hashtag #NationalPastryDay.