What does “Blätterteig” mean in German, and why is it called that?

Blätterteig is puff pastry — the flaky dough behind a five-minute ham-and-cheese snack. Take the word apart and the name explains the food: Blätter (leaves) plus Teig (dough), because the pastry bakes into dozens of thin, leaf-like layers. It’s a clean example of German naming a food after exactly what it visibly does.

The pattern repeats across German baking vocabulary: Mürbeteig (short-crust, literally “crumbly dough”), Hefeteig (yeast dough), Rührteig (batter, literally “stirred dough”) — each name describes the dough’s texture or process rather than naming a finished dish. Once you know Teig means dough, much of a German bakery’s vocabulary becomes guessable on sight.