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!”
Ribbon cookies, peanut blossoms, candied citrus peel, pine nut cookies, cloud cookies, and a buche de noel.
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Mandelhornchen and russisch brot and gingerbread, plus shortbread with my mother in law. I want to make everything in this book, it’s lovely, though with a newborn getting much of anything done is a challenge. At least all the nursing means I don’t have to worry too much about the number of cookies I’m eating ;).
My sister gave me your book for my birthday, so if I win I’ll give her the book and share the spices. The plum jam is all mine though! I just read that recipe for the pocket cookies – yum!
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I love going through cookbooks and websites and magazines every year to find new additions to my baking list. An all time favorite is the spoon cookie (from Gourmet I believe, it’s a brown butter shortbread like cookie shaped
with a spoon), and madeleines are also great. This year I’m wanting to try out a millionaire’s shortbread recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. And of course I still need to think of a good Christmas morning bread/treat… I love reading all the comments to get ideas!
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I just finished baking your Baseless Brunsli , my house smells like chocolate and the cookies are delicious. If I have time I will post them on my bog. For years I made tiny Gingerbread house ornaments with my first graders. I made them with Graham crackers . I I assembled the houses and the children decorated them. It was so much fun and everyone had a house to take home. I have the instructions on my blog.
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oops, I mean Baseler Brunsli!
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My Austrian dad taught me how to make springerle as a kid — he still makes huge batches to give as gifts every year — and now in my own house I’ve taken up the tradition. Best, in my opinion, when they’re left to get very, very stale, and then dipped in tea.
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We’ll make a lot of the kid-friendly standards – rolled and decorated sugar cookies, coconut cookies dipped in chocolate… things that the kids can make (almost) themselves. Also we’ll make a lot of granola and jam for teacher gifts!
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Wow I actually just typed my own name wrong. It’s JEN A, not Jan A. It’s been a long week.
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My Christmas baking list is based on what my mother baked when I was growing up, pumpkin bread, cranberry-walnut bread, sugar cookies, chocolate balls and Santa Snacks (7-Layer Bars). Many years ago I had a great recipe for chocolate rugallach, but I misplaced it and have never been able to find exactly the same one.
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Dear Luisa, I would first like to thank you for the very beautiful blog! I found it a few of months ago and am an avid reader ever since. And what an exciting giveaway! Baking gingerbread cookies of various shapes and then decorating them with icing, chocolate, sprinkles, nuts, dried fruit, etc. has been a family Christmas tradition for as long as I can remember. However, a few months ago I moved to the USA and I am very excited to add American treats to my repertoire. I have started off the holiday season with sweet potato pie, and loved, loved, loved it! I am also going to bake pecan pie and immerse myself in cookie dough: peanut butter blossoms, chocolate crinkle cookies, and anise-flavoured biscotti are on my list.
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You are a kind and generous soul and cheer us up immensely. Thank you.
Every year the list is different but there are some types.
A shortbread cookie (I love shortbread particularly a citrus cornmeal recipe)
Biscotti, so good for sending long distances
A classic cookie, chocolate chip or peanut butter or double chocolate
Cream cheese dough with jam (I have a lot of trouble sharing these)
Something new or slightly exotic with interesting spices or made with other flours like chestnut or buckwheat
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a great giveaway! I always make smitten kitchen’s spiced nuts
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Molasses cookies. And I’ve always wanted to try my hand at zimsterne.
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I will certainly be baking a stollen, and perhaps some mincemeat tarts. I made a very successful panettone a couple years ago and would like to try again. And of course lots of cookies, varieties tbd. Thank you for publishing this wonderful book, for adding photos to the ste, and for the giveaway!
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I used to make only my great-grandmother’s recipes: fudge, peanut-butter cookies, cinnamon-spiced nuts, spice drop cookies. But over the years the list has changed and now I try new things almost every season. So far I’ve decided on a very gingery molasses cookie, seeded spelt crackers, pasticcine di mandorle, vanilla wafers or nutmeg maple butter cookies, and either sweet or savory spiced nuts.
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Just looked at your photos – lots of fond memories emerge, looking at Blitzkuchen, Bienenstich, Butterkuchen, Nussecken, Heidjertorte, Bremer Kuerbisstuten – you can probably guess that I grew up in Northern Germany.
I made the German Apple-Almond-Cake after your recipe appeared in David Lebovitz’s blog. It turned out very well (but I have to bake it a little longer). I was wondering whether you can substitute almond flower and sugar for the almond paste? I promised to bring a German Apple-Almond-Cake to the Christmas eve dinner we are doing every year with friends in a DC suburb. I will probably also bake a citrus cake during the holidays – a simple “Ruehrteig”, soaked with lots of lemon and orange juice combined with confectioners sugar, served with real whipped cream. Continuing on the citrus path, I will make lemon sables again which were last year’s favorite cookies (beating out German Lebkuchen, double chocolate cookies and Rumkugeln).
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On my Christmas baking list are shortbread, sugar cookies, ginger cookies (either snaps or thick and chewy ones), Dowager Duchess fruitcake, made with blanched almonds and homemade candied orange peel and doused in rum and/or Amaretto, tourtière (French-Canadian meat pie), pumpkin pie, apple pie.
I made your Basler Brunsli last weekend and they are delicious! Also picked up some apricot jam, almonds, butter and chocolate because I have a feeling I’ll be needing those ingredients.
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My husband is Greek so we have a cultural mix of Christmas baking:
Christmas doves (a yeasted sweet egg bread shaped into doves with a clove for the eye), Vassilopita (yeasted sweet new years bread with a coin in the middle – the one who finds it has good luck), Melomakarona (cookies in a honey syrup), Kourabiedes (not too sweet shortbread cookies heavily dusted with powdered sugar), Ottolenghi’s chocolate spice cookies (which I got from you), mincemeat tarts, and my mum’s Christmas cake (of course! A fruitcake but with a light batter, not a dark one). Oh, I can hardly wait!
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Shortbread, candy cane brownies, and gingerbread cookies. All classics and full of butter!
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I’m planning to make gingersnaps, snickerdoodles, shortbread thumbprints and maybe some chocolate crinkles. Plus I recently saw a lemon and cranberry cake that I can’t stop thinking about. So I want to make that. Only maybe I’ll switch orange for lemon.
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Hello! Yay another giveaway! I’ve been following your blog since I first heard about the cookbook being made. Congratulations on all the acclaim and spotlight you’ve received with the publication of your cookbooks! My holiday baking list includes pumpkin, pear, and or Apple pie, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread men, and ginger bread. I love this time of year!
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We always make my great-grandmother Reichert’s lebkuchen (highly Americanized), Dorie Greenspan’s world peace cookies, great-grandma Gunderson’s Krumkake, and sesame seed shortbread cookies, I once made my great aunt’s rum balls and they were practically combustible.
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Butter spritz from a cookie press, soft molasses cookies, saltine cracker toffee, and my grandmas applesauce candy.
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Ooh, Lebkuchen, I need to find some of those. I’ve never been quite adventurous enough to make them, but I will make toffee squares (actually more of a shortbread with chocolate on top, don’t know why they get called that) and sand tarts. And then I will return from grad school and visit my aunt who makes 16+ different types of cookies and be super happy – my favorite there are probably the spritz, but many are good!
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Cookies, cookies and more cookies
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I’d love to win your German baking book! I have been to Germany and Austria many times and I love the cuisine. And all the cakes and cookies are to die for!
I always bake Zimsterne (so simple but sooo good, always a hit!) and Lebkuchen of course, and Kugelhopfen. This year I am making cinnamon rolls for breakfast too.
I hope I can add your book to my collection!!
Happy Christmas baking 😉
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Already made stoellen with my German mother in law. Next up is pizzelles.
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As an American living in Nürnberg for sometime now, I have grown to love German baking although I don’t do it often enough. My son is now almost 4 and enjoys baking Plätzchen with his Oma here and for my Mom’s 70’s birthday, I sent her your baking book because one of my parent’s favorite things when traveling to Germany is all of the baked goods here. On obvious choice, especially when living in Nürnberg is Lebkuchen. It is also a favorite because my Dad has so many fond memories of his Grandmother’s Lebkucken growing up in Oklahoma. It was a recipe handed down for many generations. We also love Zimtsterne in our house and enjoy baking them every Christmas. I have added Classic German Baking to my Christmas wish list because it is right up my alley coming from America but living in Germany. We still like have discussions of measuring flour in grams vs cups in our kitchen:)
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Panettone, proper, fruit-packed Christmas cake and chocolate log!
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Luisa, Thank you for the pictures. I’m finding out that people around here have different names for the same thing. I always thought my family was German but because they were in territory under German rule they have many of the same foods and treats of their regions, some times subtle differences. I’m always asking what is it made of or what does it look like. I did treats for a business meeting this week and a guy said (with a smile) “I haven’t seen anything like this since I was a child.” I was happy! I’ve been trying to revive the German heritage in Texas, in particular our town.
I’ve already made 47 dozen cookies in the last couple of months. My own list will include Vanilla Cresents/Butter almond Cresents, Weihnact Stollen, Snickerdoodles, Thumbprints w Jam, Cranberry Gems, Butterscotch Glazed Shortbread, Cut out sugar cookies, Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti, Monster Cookies (1983 chocochip cookies with peanut butter in dough), Fall fruit upside down cake (tart apples, pears, and cranberries) for my friend from Mexico, Snow balls (recipe about 90 years old from my friend’s Mother lots of butter, pecans and powdered sugar), Granola (for my brother to take back on the road home), Oatmeal Cookies w chocochips, nuts and cranberries). And Snickerdoodles (KA’s bread flour recipe). I’ve been baking for a prison retreat, our Ronald McDonald Room at the hospital, and my landlord for the summer’s Flower shops Christmas open house. My house is a mess but it’s been great.
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I plan on making bizcochitos and one of the cookies from your book. Maybe a gingerbread house too but …..
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At the top of my list are definitely Zimtsterne, Spekulatius and the classic Lebkuchen!
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Ein absolutes Muss: klassische Ausstecherplätzchen <3, dazu allerhand Apfelkuchen und vielleicht noch ein altrs Lebkuchenrezept…schon ist der Winter gerettet…
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Chocolate-candy cane bark and cashew nut brittle are my Christmas mainstays.
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What a lovely giveaway. I love having a mix of cookies and cakes from different countries. On my list: mince pies, English Christmas cake, panforte, stollen, gingerbread men, pepparkakor, ‘birds’ nests’ (I don’t know if this is a commonly used name or not, but its’ what my Grandma calls jam thumbprints as this recipe has you roll the dough in chopped pecans, which, with a bit of imagination make the cookies look like twiggy nests).
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Congratulations on all the wonderful press coverage for your book! My favorite baking list, inspired by your book: Zedernbrot, Vannillekipfel, Zimtsterne, and, not in your book, but one of my mom’s recipes, Nougatherzen.
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I’m planning to bake my annual gigantic cookie platter despite be 37 weeks pregnant! On the menu are Mexican wedding cakes, white and dark chocolate dipped pretzels with various garnishes (sea salt and candy cane), Ottolenghi’s spiced xmas cookies, mince pies and some form of rich brownie. A copy of your cookbook would be a treasure to keep me company on the wintry months of maternity leave ahead. Thanks Luisa!
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my baking list consists of coconut macaroons, schokoladenbrödle, linzer tartelettes, heidesand and schoko-amarena kugeln (haven` tried those yet) happy 2. advent and all the best to you and your family! best to berlin from berlin, anja
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Biscotti are usually at the top of my list–gingerbread, cranberry and anise seed are my top three favorites for Christmas. This year I will add the Schwarz-Weiss Geback from your cookbook. Then there are the holiday breads, which will now include your Christbrot.
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What a sweet way to spread holiday and every day cheer! I’m sure to make ginger cookies, densely chewy, dotted with raisins, and redolent with spice, from my wonderful Aunt Susie’s recipe. Oat crumb apple pie. And I absolutely cannot wait to make the coffee cakes and, for my dad and brother’s birthdays falling directly on Christmas, marble cake from your book!
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We always bake pumpkin pie for Christmas Eve dinner and have leftovers for Christmas day breakfast. And I bake cookies – teeny tiny ones. Sugar cookies, gingerbread, spicy sugar cookies, shortbread. Not baking but I also make fudge sauce and caramels, dipped in chocolate and dusted with sea salt.
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Speculoos, stollen bites, and linzer cookies 🙂
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Baking today! With a dear friend of mine. It is the best distraction, you are so very right about that. The List, although it might change: a mix of French-Canadian (maple-pecan sandies, pecan bars, my grand-mother’s “tarte aux oeufs”, Ginger cookies), Austrian (Florentiner Schnitten, Nussbusserl, Spitzbuben, Teegebäck, Vanillekipferl) and gathered from the Worldwideweb recipes (Flo Braker’s Pain d’amandes with a tad more spices, Lottie and Doof’s Mexican chocolate cookies, Coconut-brown butter cookies by Smitten Kitchen). Happy baking and a peaceful 2.Advent to you and your family.
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I have an insanely long baking list, mainly due to the fact that everybody in my family has that one special cookie that they just cannot do without. And neither of them bake. So I’ll be making Linzer Augen, Elisenlebkuchen, Baci di Dama, Rugelach, Vanillekipferl, Zimtsterne, Berliner Brot, Chocolate Shortbread aka World Peace Cookies, Zedernbrot, and Panforte (not technically a cookie). And because I want to find my ultimate Leb-/Pfefferkuchen recipe, I’m making three different ones of those as well (yours, one by some
Swedish pastry chef and one from this ancient baking book I found at Bibliotheca culinaria).
I also have a one-year-old who likes to “help”, mostly by eating my ingredients. I should be ok. 😀
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Holiday baking is generally cookies. I make coffee almond balls (an amazing combo of butter, quick oatmeal, espresso powder, and almond extract), ginger molasses cookies, cranberry-pistachio cookies, chocolate cherry cookies, and angel cookies, which are a soft sugar cookie where you dip the ball of dough in colored sugar before baking. On Christmas Day, we often make cranberry cake or almond cake for breakfast, because it’s my dad’s birthday, so cake for breakfast.
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Mince pies, Austrian Cream Cookies, Russian Teacakes, Cherry Pecan Icebox Cookies, Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies, Spritz, Lucia buns, and that pull-apart rosette bread recipe I saw in the paper and stole out of the doctor’s waiting room.
And we usually buy a loaf of pannetone and make French toast out of it.
And this is my first season with a fancy mixer of my own. More breads!
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We bake apple and huckleberry pies. I also must have divinity, rum balls and russian tea cakes.
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I won’t be baking quite as much this year since there are not many family members left to celebrate the holidays, but I will be doing some of my family’s traditional Italian cookies and peanut brittle. Of course My husband’s, favorite, pizzelle and my son’s pressed sugar cookies and mine which my Mother used to make and she called them Patty Pies. I want to add your Lebkuchen and a Stollen for breakfast.
Your new book is on my Wish list and hope I receive it; if not I will be ordering it anyway! I look forward to trying new German recipes.
Congragulations on you success with this wonderful book.
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My Christmas baking list this year is short but classic: Gingerbread cookies (piparkakut!) and pulla (Finnish cardamom rolls). Those are the most delicious wintry treats I know, but I’d love to bake from your book and add to the repertoire =)
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We have a lot of traditions and requests to fulfill: Pfeffernüsse for me, Lebkuchen for my dad, Mrs. Dull’s white fruitcake for my mom, and the fat chocolate spice cookies from the Jerusalem cookbook for everyone else!
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