We finally need another German recipe on the blog, for that reason you will get the typical Snow White Cake aka Donauwelle. But I am serving this classic with a twist, you will get it with strawberries instead of cherries. This cake contains a marbled cake base (another super German recipe) into which you press some cherries (normally), followed by a layer of German buttercream and topped off with a chocolate layer. Beside the Black Forest Cake this Snow White Cake is super German for me. But since I was not in the mood for canned cherries, I decided to use a lot of fresh strawberries, so my buttercream contains chunks of strawberry. The chocolate layer also has some strawberries tucked inside. Because why not? Continue Reading…
Today I am introducing you to a German treat with a Latin American twist: tree cake with the caramel dulce de leche. You may wonder why it is called tree cake. All the layers are supposed to represent the rings you see when you cut through the stem of a tree. If you buy this cake at a fair, the layers are not shown horizontally, but vertically. This makes it look even more like the real tree rings and hence the name. However, since you need a special construction with the cake roating on it to bake layer after layer, I decided to go for a simple version you can prepare with your oven at home.

These German vanilla crescents are prepared with real vanilla to give them maximum flavor. This is a classic Christmas cookie very popular in the German-speaking countries. So we are going to add vanilla not only in the dough, but also in the dusting. They are called vanilla crescents for a reason.

Finally it is plum time! For that reason you get Bavarian Zwetschgendatschi or plum cake today. Since I have been living in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, for more than a year, I need to introduce some local traditions and one of them definitely is Zwetschgendatschi. There are a lots of fights about what is the most classic version of this iconic dish. You can either prepare it with yeast dough or a pie crust, you may wish to only serve it with plums for them to shine. I, however, am a huge fan of crumbs or streusel and therefore decided to go with the crumb version. If you don’t want to wait for the yeast dough to rise, you can also make this plum tart, which I like just the same.
I asked you on Instagram and you all agreed, you wanted to get the recipe for ths cheesecake with apricots and crumbs. So here goes. I decided to make my favorite cheesecake with a pie crust (this is a very German thing to do) and fill it with lots of apricots (two layers) and sprinkle with some crumbs. Yes, I love crumbs on about anything. If you are not that much into crumbs, you can just leave them out, no problem.
It was the end of November, we were living as poor university students at that point in Dresden, in the east of Germany. We had no clue what to do. Everybody around us seemed to be busy decorating the apartment with wood handcraft from the close Ore mountains. Nutcrackers, smoking manikins, “Schwippbögen”, these are usually showing the nativity, were unwrapped and placed throughout the apartment. We simply couldn’t afford German wood handcraft from the region and therefore only had bare walls to show. Our Christmas decorations? Nil, nada, inexistent. What to do if you can barely make ends meet? My solution was simple: gingerbread or German Lebkuchen. Gingerbread is perfect if you want to use it as decoration. Regardless if you wish to use it for a gingerbread house (or even village?), to decorate your Christmas tree with, or to make an advent calendar. Gingerbread was my solution to our Christmas decoration.
These German nut triangles are one of my favorite desserts from Germany. I just learned recently that you supposedly only serve them during Christmas season in some regions of Germany. However, I remember seeing them everywhere all year round, every bakery had them at least where we lived. Even the school kiosk offered them all the time and I happily ate them day in and day out.
Creamy German Cheesecake with strawberries, that’s what you will get today. You may ask what German cheesecake is compared to American cheesecake? The main differences are that you use quark or curd cheese instead of only cream cheese and you have a pie crust to keep it all together and not your typical cookie crust. Do you want to give this cheesecake a try? The version you see below is the creamiest of them all. You can eat it plain or serve it, as I did, with a strwaberry topping. If you rather try some other, this is more traditional cream cheesecake with blueberries a no refined sugar, this one with apples and caramel, this one is the traditional Japanese, or a no-bake with limes. Continue Reading…
Have you every heard of “Kaiserschmarren”? This is a giant pancake cut into small pieces, dusted with icing sugar and served with compote. It is very famous in Austria and the south of Germany. Since I recently moved from the north of Germany to the south, to Munich, I felt it was time I gave this traditional recipe another go. There is a whole war going on whether to include raisins or not, but I love the plain version, sorry. However, I decided to serve it with rhubarb compote. Normally you would serve it with a plum compote, but it is spring and I like rhubarb, so why not give this a little spin. So think a pancake cut in neat pieces, dusted with icing sugar and some nice fruit compote on the side and you get this Kaiserschmarren. Sounds good?
Recipes with a story behind are the best in my opinion. This definitely holds true for these Heidesand cookies. For that reason I feel especially honored to introduce them here. The recipe was passed down from the lovely lady Mrs. P. Mrs. P was busy baking these cookies for her granddaugther when the handyman who was working at her place asked why it was smelling so nice in her kitchen. Mrs. P. replied that she was preparing Heidesand cookies as these were the favorite of her granddaugther and immediately handed a cookie to the handyman. He was so excited about the cookies after he tried them that he continued praising them as soon as he returned home. The girlfriend of the handyman listened to his story and immediately requested that he ask for the recipe the next day when he was about to return to Mrs. P’s house. He glady returned the favor and asked Mrs. P. for the recipe. She got very excited, immediately sat down and wrote down the recipe for him, which he then faithfully passed on to his girldfriend. And this is the point where the story takes a tragic turn. Because Mrs. P. passed away shortly after. But had passed on the recipe to the girlfriend, who has baked this recipe many times and now passed on the recipe to me. I will definitely hold it very dear in my recipe collection.