Bethmannchen

Bethmännchen are small balls of marzipan dough made from ground almonds, icing sugar and rose water. Each one gets three almond halves pressed into its sides and a brush of egg yolk before it goes into the oven. They're a variation on the Frankfurter Brenten, a marzipan biscuit the city has known since the Middle Ages.

The name comes from Frankfurt's Bethmann banking family. A legend says the Paris confectioner Jean Jacques Gautenier invented them in 1838 while he was chef to the banker Simon Moritz von Bethmann, with four almonds for four sons until one son died in 1845 and an almond came off. German Wikipedia points out that Simon Moritz von Bethmann died in 1826, so the story can't be right as told and the biscuits are probably older. Frankfurt's tourism office keeps to the short version, in which the three almonds recall the Bethmann sons, and the sweet has been a Frankfurt Christmas custom since the 19th century.

Frankfurt's tourism office says you'll find them at the Christmas market around the Römerberg, and that Schlosscafé Keth has been there with its handmade version for 40 years. Plenty of Frankfurt families bake their own as well.