How are you all feeling today? Any better? No? Me neither. But it's December 2nd and the first Advent has already come and gone and so I have a little distraction for all of us. Drumroll……
BAKING.
Surprise!
But actually, it really does kind of work, at least momentarily. It keeps you busy, and off the internet, not just while you're plannning which cookies to make, and writing ingredient lists, and going grocery shopping. But also while you mix and beat and chop and bake. Then you get to assemble your masses of cookies, in cellophone bags or aluminum tins or perhaps little cardboard boxes wrapped up with string. And we haven't even gotten to the part where you have to decide whom to give the cookies too! You're looking at at least a week's worth of distraction in total. At least! Pretty good, huh? I'll say.
So let's do another giveaway, shall we? Let's get our minds off the end of the world. Leave me a comment here listing what your favorite Christmas baking list looks like and I'll pick a winner on Sunday. The winner gets a signed (and personalized) copy of Classic German Baking, an assortment of German baking ingredients (candied citrus peels, poppy seeds, marzipan, various raising agents, and mixed Lebkuchen spice) plus a jar of my homemade Pflaumenmus, which will hopefully motivate the winner (and at least a few other of you?) to bake the Lebkuchen-Powidltatschkerln – little rye cookie pockets filled with plum jam – in the Christmas chapter. I love those little babies – we discovered them in a magazine while on a "research" trip to Austria last year. They're soft and tangy and spicy and delicious. Spread the word!
(If anyone is wondering, my baking list would include those plum jam rye cookies, nutty Spekulatius, Pfeffernüsse, Basler Brunsli and Springerle, which I'll be making with Joanie next week and – if all goes according to plan – filming! In some capacity. We'll see. It'll probably be terrible. But also hopefully a little useful? Oh! And I've committed to the most insane thing ever: providing enough homemade slabs of Lebkuchen to make gingerbread houses with Hugo and FOUR of his little friends. Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking either. Hold me?)
In other news, the Washington Post recently included Classic German Baking in their round-up of the year's best cookbooks, writing "This overdue guide is a happy marriage of European craft and American sensibilities." Which made me want to marry the Washington Post in a happy marriage of my own.
On Food52's gorgeously illustrated guide to global holiday sweets, I was thrilled to get to contribute a little piece on Elisenlebkuchen (with recipe).
On Tastebook, I was interviewed about Classic German Baking, plus asked to talk a little bit about the three cookbooks I'm currently cooking from.
Deutsche Welle interviewed me on some of the nitty-gritty aspects of writing the cookbook, including my recipe for Brezeln (soft pretzels).
The loveliest cookbook store in Seattle, Book Larder, asked me 11 questions about food memories, my food heroes and favorite cookbooks.
But the most important thing I wanted to write about today is actually about the biggest complaint I've gotten on the cookbook so far: the relatively low number of food photos. For a variety of reasons, it just wasn't feasible for every recipe, or even every other recipe, to get its own photo. I did my very best to write the recipes as tightly and carefully as I could, so that home bakers would get good results without a photo guiding them. But I understand the frustration of some. So I've put together a list of every recipe in the book with an accompanying photograph – where I could, this will get updated going forward – and have posted them on a separate page which is accessible by clicking on the "Classic German Baking Photos" link under the book image that you see over in the right sidebar. It's a little clunky, but I hope it satisfies the need for visuals in the book and can be a helpful resource for all of you. Feel free to let your friends who have the book know about this. Thank you!
UPDATE: Nora is the winner and has been notified. Thank you so much for participating! Happy baking to all – you are an inspiration!
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300 responses to “A Classic German Baking Giveaway, plus Classic German Baking Photos!”
We make buckeyes! And peanut butter kiss cookies, m&m cookies, spritz cookies, sugar cookies. It’s really all about the cookies in my family.
Also, my family has a tradition of making a big pot of chili on Christmas eve for the party with extended family. Because of this, it has fallen to me for several years to make the cornbread. I love making cornbread.
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Right now my baking list consists of a bunch of titles that I can’t pronounce (wink-wink). Also, for today: raisin bread and pies, just for anyhow.
Love the photo blog! Here’s what my (very delicious—-thank you!) Zimtbrezeln looked like: http://bit.ly/2ggnkXm
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I love to make mince pies – I pop flaked almonds, toasted hazelnuts and orange zest into the pastry, fill with orange and hazelnut mincemeat, the top with more hazelnuts. They smell and taste of Christmas to me!
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On my holiday baking list are minced pies, bakewell tart, apple cakes and possibly peacan tart or pear and chestnuts tart.
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Fruit cake, gingerbread, anything with lots of spices (:
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Bienenstich Kuchen! But really all of your recipes. I am so excited ablit your book. You have opened up so many memories from my childhood. Thank you so very much!
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Lebkuchen, mince pies, apple and cinnamon cakes, and pear tart! 🙂
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But for Christmas and Bundte Teller:
Vanille Kipferl
Zimtsterne
Lebkuchen
and Deb Perlman’a cranberry orange cinnamon rolls
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Actually my latest holiday baking was inspired by you: The Boston Brownies (dark chocolate with cranberries) that you shared last year. Like you I was skeptical of a German brownie recipe (I find that in the German-speaking countries a lot of the takes on American recipes just aren’t quite right) but this has become my favorite brownie recipe (and I no longer import in boxes of Betty Crocker mix since I have the basic choc part of the Boston recipe.)
In our household my Austrian Dh tends to make our traditional Christmas baking with the Linzer Augen and Vanillekipferl that he grew up with. Austrian/German recipes have always intimidated me since an early kitchen disaster when I forst moved to Austria.
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I already have the book :-), but on the baking menu this year:
Sugar cookies
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (David Lebovitz, I think)
Sparkling Ginger Chip Cookies (101 Cookbooks)
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My home made christmas list is a mix of Indian and German treats. Having lived in Lohr am Main for almost 4 years, we embraced the german way of life head on. Our family’s favourite is the zimtsterne which I bake beautifully. My daughter misses her lebkuchen so much. I miss Edeka’s candied peel which I used to use in my christmas Indian rum cake filled with soaked raisins, candied peel and cherries.
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This year will be the first that my daughter can help with holiday baking, I’m so excited and so is she! We’re planning to whip up gingerbread biscotti, cranberry cakes, and lebkuchen for gifting. Can’t wait to get started!
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Candy cane meringues, snickerdoodles, and some kind of nut cookie are always on the list. Also toffee and peanut brittle. I am still thinking what will be special and new for this year.
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I have resolved to bake Lucia Saffron Buns for St. Lucia Day this year – have been wanting to make/eat them since I was a kid!
Normally on my Christmas baking list however is the typical frosted sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and russian tea cakes 🙂 (so excited for this contest – hope to get my hands on this book in not toooo long)
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Your book is on my Christmas list, Luisa! Your first is a favourite so hoping to see the second under the tree!
My typical seasonal baking list:
-Fresh Quark Stollen from Jeffrey Alford & Naomi Duguid’s Home Baking, made with my sister every year we’re in the same place for the holiday (alas, not this year)
-Christmas fruitcake from my mum’s friend Joan’s recipe, because I’m convinced all the best fruitcake recipes come from a random family friend
-My maternal grandmother’s recipe for Komish Broit, which our family has always called Jewish Cookies, for some reason that has never been made clear
-My favourite cinnamon buns for my annual holiday party, and again this year for New Year’s Day breakfast, as I’ll be celebrating in Copenhagen with friends and we’ll need something to pad us from the cold 😉
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My typical baking list includes: gingersnaps, snickerdoodles, peanut butter kiss cookies that I hide from my peanut allergy child, these chocolate cookies with rolos in the middle, and lots and lots of sugar cookies. Oh, and always cinnamon rolls for Christiana’s morning! I sadly had to return your book to the library and I’m not getting my own copy until my birthday on the 14th, so I’m not sure if ill be able to add new things this year, like your Lebkuchen which I am desperate to make! But in the future, I basically want to just add the Christmas section to my repertoire!
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I would like to try the Quark Cheese Cake from the Classic German Baking.
I also would like to bake a banana cream pie. Which isn’t really Christmas but so good.
Hersey kiss drop cookies are a classic. But this year I want to try peanut butter cookies with Hersey Kisses.
Thanks for the photo link!
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Well, there’s Stollen, but we did that in October already, and then two sorts of Plätzchen from your book – Vanillekipferl (a German person asked me for the recipe!) and Zimtsternen.
There’s also still time to delve deeper into the Christmas section :).
Thanks for linking up to all the pictures (what an undertaking!) and also for recommending the DO Preserve book in one of those posts. I just ordered a whole package of books from them, including the sourdough one. Amazingly, when you buy the paperbacks they also send you a link to the eBook, which is perfect when you want to give them away as a gift but still have a chance to read them.
Hoping your Advent is fun and peaceful!
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Each year I make Liebesgrübchen (which is what we call Husarenkrapfen in my family) and Kokos- or Nussmakronen – the first ones because I like their taste best and the second ones because they use up the egg whites 🙂 This year I already have the dough for smitten kitchen’s rollout brownie cookies waiting in the fridge and would like to try to make some Lebkuchen.
But right now I’m deep into Strudel. I loved the apple strudel from your book that smitten kitchen wrote about and freestyled a Mohnstrudel but it was too dry. I hope once I get your book for Christmas that I have better luck with your poppy seed filling.
One another note: I hope you’ll feel better soon. Your links in the previous post were an inspiration and I’m looking into some political activism. Doing something and hoping the world will change for the better usually improves my mood.
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My husband was born and raised in Berlin, and having spent Christmas there I try to bake German goodies and past this tradition on to our children and grandchildren! Wil bake sugar cookies to decorate and fruit tarts. Would love to add additional German baking ideas!
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Your memoir is one of my favorite books ever … so I’m hoping for the second one! 🙂
On my baking list:
Apple sesame streusel pie
Peanut butter brownies
Chocolate chip cookies (gotta have the classic)
Chocolate almond ginger bark
Thanks as always for your wonderful writing!
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Every year I make the same Christmas cookies, in remembrance of our time living in Stuttgart 25 years ago: Nussecken, Kipferl, Nuss Makronen, Spitzbuben/Linzer and Springerle, although I’d love to get more molds! I’ve checked your cookbook out of the library and want to try making your recipe for Pfeffernüsse and Baselerleckerei!
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For the second time, we are hosting one night of our neighborhood’s “Lebendiger Adventskalender” (Living Advent Calendar) which means baking a lot of cookies! We will do some sort of American theme – last year was “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” with a lot of (please, only white) lights and then singing, this year…uh…I still have 19 days to figure something out (my husband said I have to be nice and can’t do anything involving darts and pictures of certain politicians). But the cookies we did last time were such a hit, we’re doing them again: Dorie Greenspan’s “World Peace Cookies”, well, because World Peace is delicious and a good thing to share, Ina Garten’s “Ultimate Ginger Cookies”, (who knew no one here in Northern Germany had ever had chewy ginger cookies – such a hit that I had to translate the recipe and have handed out, no lie, at least 30 copies!!!) “Stained Glass Cookies” (very similar to the ones just posted by Joy the Baker), and sugar cookies made with a custom “haus” cutter, topped with melted chocolate squiggles and crushed peppermint sticks. I do love all the traditional German “Plätzchen” and our local Bremer Klaben, but we have so many great bakers here I just enjoy theirs. However, a certain German Baking Book is on my Christmas list, so maybe next year I’ll have to break down and add some more local goodies to our offering.
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I’m planning to make stollen and the whole chapter of cookies to give as presents in glass jars painted by me =) …. I hope!!!
Oh, and thanks for the photos…they´ll be really helpfull!
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My holiday baking list includes: gingernsnaps with candied ginger in them, pizzelles flavored with anise, Mexican wedding cookies, peanut butter blossoms, spritz, and this year I want to try springerle cookies – I got a mold last year after the holiday and can’t wait to try it! I have your book on my Christmas wish list and can’t wait to start baking!!
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Delightfully old-fashioned spritz cookies from my great-grandmother’s recipe: lightly almond scented, dyed with food coloring, and cranked through a cookie press that we’ve had for generations. I’ll also be making gingersnaps (extra ginger!), rugelach, and our favorite orange-essenced shortbread.
As a side project, I made some wholesome granola to lessen the temptation of eating cookies for breakfast.
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I make a whole variety of Christmas cookies.
I so appreciate you posting all the photos from the book!
Would love to win a copy signed by you
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The list of Christmas Baking is as long as I am tall; thankfully only 5’2″ so, there’s that! My paternal grandmother was German and you can be sure as many of her recipes as I have are made! Everyone loved O-Mommy’s Cookies! My fave is her Jam Squares which I also make; but my most fave were her Pretzels which I did not get the recipe for 😢
Loved you Berlin Kitchen!
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Every year I bake christmas spice cookies (pepparkakor, a swedish recipe I found and really adored so I keep baking them the last years), but also traditional Greek cookies like ‘melomakarona’ (spice cookies dipped in honey and syrup, drizzled with crashed walnuts) and ‘kourampiedes’ (bite size sugar cookies with almonds dusted with icing sugar).
Earlier this week I was in Berlin for a short vacation, where I tasted many things that I can’t wait to try at home!!
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Definitely lebkuchen! Will be making with my son to gift to all our friends, neighbours, teachers etc. They loved them last year 🙂 x
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Definitely lebkuchen! Will be making with my son to gift to all our friends, neighbours, teachers etc. They loved them last year 🙂 x
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My list this year includes Dutch bokkepootjes (meringue fingers sandwiched with an almond filling, then the ends dipped in chocolate), ooblis (digestive biscuit spread with coffee-flavored frosting, then dipped in chocolate and stored in freezer to be served almost-frozen), and I’m hoping to try Linzer cookies this year (my MIL gave us some jars of very delicious but very runny plum jam, so I’ll likely use raspberries. The kids really want to do decorated sugar cookies this year (ugh) so I plan to use some linzer dough to make them a couple shapes each.
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Unfortunately I will not be baking this year 😦 I care for my 89 year old mother who went into a nursing home this year and I will be with her there. It is just the two of us here in the U.S. and there is no sense in baking for just me. When I was growing up it was all about the baking, and we would be in the kitchen for about a week. We made sugar cookies, Vienna poles, Chocolate nut wafers, Molasses crisps, butterballs, Pfeffernusse, and even homemade stollen. I love the smell of baking! And I am an avid baker when I have the time. This year will be quite and different, but I have one more Christmas I get to spend with my Mother and that is what means the world to me!
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I make stollen, pfefferneuse, sugar cookies, gingerbread, panettone and Italian hazelnut cookies. I would love to have your cookbook!
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We make molasses cookies and my great-grandmother’s sugar cookie recipe. I’ve been making Orangette’s coffee walnut toffee for a few years and it’s a must-have for my family now! We also make chocolate mint squares, and my mom always makes a Swedish tea ring for Christmas morning! It’s a yeasted ring filled with cinnamon, sugar, nuts with a glaze and smells heavenly!
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Definitely pfeffernusse, some kind of iced sugar cookie, rainbow cookies, linzer cookies. Yum!
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I love making sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, and I can’t wait to add Lebkuchen this season in the mix! My husband is partly German so he loves anything German. I can’t wait!!!
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Unless I win your book I will probably only make the Haselnusskugeln which my mother used to make with me and my sister when we were children.
http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/1288991234285896/Haselnusskugeln.html
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My baking list includes Gingerbread cookies with my nieces, Mexican Wedding Cookies, your Mini Stollen cookies, a medieval Pan Dolce from Genoa, and a Buche de Noel! 🎄
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I love this post, and thanks for posting the photos link! I bought the book for my mom for her birthday and she loved it 🙂
My baking list includes brownie rollout cookies, chocolate babka, rosemary shortbread, and this year I’ll add one of yours! Thanks for taking the time to create this amazing book!
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I would love a copy of this book Louisa as I would very much like to add Linzertorte, geback, and the yeasted faux braid poppyseed bread to my Christmas repertoire. Every Christmas I make my mother’s recipe for stollen, Canadian butter tarts , Chocolate Guinness cake and shortbread.
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What a lovely distraction!
Traditionally my family makes Empire Biscuits – shortbread sandwich cookies with raspberry jam, a touch of icing and half a maraschino cherry on top. A little time consuming but it involves the whole family around the table in assembly line fashion. Such fun!
My mom makes traditional fruitcake (no nuts) which is our favorite present and my sister and I make her paneforte nero for her Christmas stocking. My aunt wants none of that so my mom makes her pecan crescents.
And we make a collection of other shortbread – coffee, brown sugar, chocolate dipped, almond and bene wafers.
That reminds me I need to get to the store for some butter!!
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Pfeffernüsse, snickerdoodles and gingerbread – oh my!
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My grandmother’s anise cookies!
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My Christmas baking list this year includes mince pies, gingerbread/Lebkuchen for the tree and have been baking lots of sourdough bread this year so am considering trying a sourdough panettone….
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ooooh I never get to bake everything that I wanted! I always bake Pfeffernüsse and Lace Cookies. Waffles are a must with my family, the heart-shaped ones on an Advent afternoon. With powdered sugar and homemade plum jam! And my mom always bakes different kinds of bread – with nuts, or yeasty, or poppy seeds… this year I need to learn that all from her!
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My mom makes gingerbread houses for us to decorate most years- I’m excited to introduce my son this year! My baking list: Chocolate-Gingerbread Cookies, Key Lime Meltaway Cookies, Bacon-Cheddar Cheese Straws, Mexican Wedding Cookies. But I have your book on hold at the library, and may need to just buy it, because my ancestry is heavily German (by way of Russia) and I’d love to embrace that with some cooking! I need to finished my seminary papers so I can devote time to baking!
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We are traveling for Christmas this year, so not a lot of baking happening at my house that week, alas. But, ah, the following week we host our 8th (!) annual New Year’s Day brunch for 30-40 people and I make homemade danishes or croissants, chocolate babka, many quiches and stratas, and lots of puff pastry for sausage rolls. It’s a crazy busy few days leading up to it but it’s one of my favorite days all year!
Your book is on my Christmas wish list this year, so maybe next year I’ll add some of your recipes to the mix 🙂
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I always make Italian fried cookies with honey plus a yeasted cinnamon cake. simple and perfect!
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As soon as the sun comes up here in Santa Cruz I will bake your Basler Brunsli cookies. Your recipes are easy to follow and well written. If I have time I will post them on my blog. Baking and cooking has kept my mind away from the recent political events. I used to make gingerbread house ornaments with 20 first grade children and some help from the parents. We assembled the tiny houses the night before and the children decorate them the following day. I did this for several years and everyone loved it.
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