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German Recipes

Simple Apple Streusel Cake

Ole from the German blog Nimmersatt has a legendary apple cake on his blog, which has been on my baking list forever. I finally have come around to making it. The recipe is from his beloved granny (actually not his real grandma, but a neighbor that took him under her wings) that sounds very much like my own grandma. Just as granny Hanna would always have a cake in the house and offer it to friends and family, so did my grandma. My grandma was a very good cook and always made something sweet. If it was somebody’s birthday, there would be so much cake and so many different pastries that the table would almost break down. She always made too much, but that is how she liked it. Usually her cakes were simple, one typical one would be a sheet cake with fruits and crumbs or peppernuts.

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Bavarian Pretzels with Overnight Rise

“Brezen” is the Bavarian word for pretzels and today I am going to introduce these to you. So far I have only bought this staple here in Munich, Germany. I was always scared of the lye bath, which is required for a true Bavarian pretzel. However, I finally decided to give it a try and have to say, wow, homemade and from scratch taste so much better than bought, even if from a nice bakery! So today I will do my best to guide you to these. Beware, even in Germany there are differences in how pretzels are made. I will explain below, I hope I can interest you in making these.

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Bavarian Plum Dumplings (Zwetschgenknödel)

Servus! Since the Oktoberfest 2024 is around the corner, I wanted to introduce you to another classic from Bavaria, Zwetschgenknödel, which translates as plum dumpling. You will realize that during the Oktoberfest a lot of desserts and pastries are sold and super popular, another typical one is the broken-up pancake called  Kaiserschmarrn, a twin of the recipe from today is made with apricots  and thus would translate as apricot dumplings. So far I have only made these famous dumplings with cream cheese or sour cream, but the real deal is actually made with cooked potatoes. So far I have refrained from it as it can be pretty finicky. It tends to be rather sticky and hard to work with. But below I offer some tricks so that you can enjoy this wonderful Bavarian classic.

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Simple Sour Cream Cake

This is a German recipe from the south, this is a simple sour cream cake. It was passed down by a reader, I didn’t even know of its existence and had to do some research. I learned that this can be classified as a cheesecake. It is made with sour cream containing 10% fat and heavy cream. What I like about this cake is several things. Number 1 being, it does not need a waterbath. Number 2: despite the fact that it is baked at a relatively high temperature, it does not crack easily. Number 3: as it uses this mild sour cream, it is not a tangy as some other German cheesecakes, it is slightly milder in taste. So will these reasons mean that you give it a try?

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Plum Cake with Yeast Dough

You probably know that it is only my hubby and me so I thought making a full baking sheet of cake would probably be too much. I already have a plum sheet cake on here. So I figured I would make more of a coffee cake in a round form. This would probably not take as long to eat. So I got to working on it and once done, it took very little and suddenly I only saw half of the cake left. Where had it gone? My hubby looked all innocent, he claimed he had only eaten three pieces of cake. If these these pieces were very large chunks of cake I inquired. Well, this depends on how you define “chunck”. Well, well, well… I think it speaks for itself that hubby was so excited about this recipe. I loosely based it on the recipe from Alfons Schuhbeck (in German). he is very famous, especially for this plum cake called Zwetschgendatschi, so I am happy to present this plum cake with yeast dough, lots of plums, and cinnamon crumbs. If you are short on time, I can recommend a much quicker plum cake, which uses baking powder as the leavener instead of yeast.


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German Hazelnut Crescents with 5 Ingredients

You may have had enough from cookies, but I don’t care, I decided to blog a last-minute recipe: German hazelnut crescents with five ingredients. This recipe was passed down to me by a lovely lady in Munich. Just as these Heidesand cookies and this Dresdner Eierschecke are recipes from readers, this one has a funny backstory. The German platform Nebenan.de works like a community platform, I got curious when I saw that somebody was asking whether German bakeries in the vicinity sold homemade cookies. I learned that his mother had requested homemade cookies during the season. Since she had recently moved to a nursery home, she couldn’t make them herself anymore. He didn’t dare to make some, so I inquired. One thing let to another and after all I managed to bake these crescents according to his mother’s recipe. Yes, of course she got a batch right away.

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Chocolate Nougat Sticks

Today I am introducing German chocolate nougat sticks. One time a colleague brought these to work, of course I had to ask her for the recipe. And once I read through it, it sounded familiar. So I consulted the old cookbook from the 80s from the company Dr. Oetker and alas, the recipe was found there as well! By now Dr. Oetker has published the recipe online as well. These chocolate nougat sticks are such a treat. Bonus point, the cookie dough does not need to chill. You can pipe the dough right away. Continue Reading…

Vegan Gingerbread Hearts with Jam Filling

Today we are making vegan gingerbread hearts with jam filling. If you so desire, you can also make them vegan, you only need to swap out the butter for vegan butter as the dough naturally does not contain any eggs. You may find this gingerbread surprising as it contains jam and chocolate. I can assure you, this is a very German recipe. In fact, every year these gingerbread hearts are sold as of October. I always thought it was impossible to make them at home. But one time when I was eating a store-bought heart, I thought, let’s see how they are actually made and consulted the Internet. To my surprise they are much easier to make than originally thought. You make gingerbread dough (check), you cut out hearts with a cookie cutter, then you place a bit of jam on one heart and seal it with another heart on top. You bake them and dunk them in chocolate. That’s it!

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Viennese Apple Strudel

Viennese apple strudel, would you like a piece? Yes, we are going to make this beauty from scratch, strudel dough is actually not as hard as you may think. Just be sure you have enough time at hand when you make the dough because it needs a pretty long resting period. That was actually what I tried to ignore this time and that’s why my first dough had a lot of holes and couldn’t be strechted properly. So feel free to start the dough the day beforehand. Resting it more than a few hours, e.g. overnight is no problem at all, you just give the gluten more time to develop. And then you will be rewarded with a delicious dessert with lots of apple flavor!

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Germany’s Answer to Apple Pie: German Apple Cake

Today I am going to introduce Germany’s answer to apple pie: German apple cake. It consists of a double pie crust, lots of apple filling and is then glazed. Compared to American apple pie, it looks rather plain. It doesn’t have any decorations, but believe me, this doesn’t mean that it tastes any less! This year we went apple picking already and so I decided to make this good old German apple cake. Sometimes you just crave the classics, so today you get this very traditional German apple cake.

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