Classic German Baking The Very Best Recipes for Traditional Favorites, from Pfeffernüsse to Streuselkuchen by Luisa Weiss

Written with love and very yummy!
This one is Classic German Baking  The Very Best Recipes for Traditional Favorites, from Pfeffernüsse to Streuselkuchen by Luisa Weiss. The cook book will be published this Oct 18th b Ten Speed Press.


Luisa introduces herself saying that, no, she didn't have any kind of German heritage. Half italian and American she grew up to Berlin and later Boston. In this melting pot atmosphere she tasted  various diversified German recipes thanks to a bakery store located close to her school.
She discovered, eating these delicious German desserts that her main inspiration was the one to become a good baker, and here she is.

Married with another baker from Saxony, she started to discover important stories regarding German cuisine.
And Luisa is right when she says that German baking is the base of American bakery.

Christmas cookies, doughnuts and other recipes are German recipes adapted once the people arrived in the New World.

She is an enthusiastic, Luisa and she explains that most of these recipes are old decades or sometimes centuries. Some of these recipes require calm and before to see the final result it's necessary to wait also long time, but Luisa remembers that each recipes is for every occasions the most informal one or the special event, like it can be a feast, Christmas, Easter, or a birthday.
The book, after a first and sunny introduction at the main ingredients and how to treat them from eggs, to butter, passing through vanilla extract, yeast powder etc, the sections I guess will intrigue the most: cookies for starting.

You can try the butterkekse  the most common but delicious butter cookies.
I love to bake them and once someone said me that they have the taste of childhood and this is true!

If you have some almonds go the Sandy Almond Sugar Cookies.

If you search for a touch of winter goes for the Cardamom Snap Cookies.

In the section you find also pretzels, bars and other wonderful and delicious treats.

Then it's the turn of cakes.

Many apple cakes for all the tastes, but also various cream rolls recipes, and fruits cakes.

The section of Yeasted Cake is for very consistent cakes. We find a sugar cake, a butter-almond cake, if you want to die of sweetness goes for a honey-almond caramel cake ;-) There are  chocolate cakes as well.

A characteristic of Germans are strudels. Strudel is the most known and baked sweet treat during the Christmas time.
In tortes and strudels an apple strudel recipe, and some jam and fruit strudels and tortes.

Savories a portion of the book dedicated to salt recipes.

Breads and rolls will introduce you to the richness of German breads and rolls, made with a lot of ingredients, salt and sweet again for all tastes and occasions.

Christmas Favorite opens with the Lebkuchen the old-fashioned German gingerbread. Then you can find the sweet Christmas Bread, and many other recipes for a sweet Christmas.

I fell in love for this cook book immediately after I downloaded it. One if the first I requested to NetGalley. Many thanks again.

The author has put all her love, all her joy in writing it and you can see it reading it.

Recipes are explained with great enthusiasm. It's like to read a book "alive" thanks to the strong connection that the author is able to create with the baker or potential one.

It can be a great Christmas gift and it will become one of your favorite cook book!


Anna Maria Polidori