The Passionate Baker

Stollen is a fruit bread of nuts, spices, and dried or candied fruit, coated with powdered sugar It is a traditional German Christmas bread.

Early stollen was different from the modern version, with the ingredients being flour, oats and water.  As a Christmas bread, stollen was baked for the first time at the Council of Trent in 1545, and was made with flour, yeast, oil and water.

Over the centuries, the bread changed from being a simple, fairly tasteless "bread" to a sweeter bread with richer ingredients, such as marzipan, although traditional Stollen is not as sweet, light, and airy as the copies made around the world.

I have perfected my Stollen Bread and happy to bring it to the show this year!

This cookie is crisp if served on the same day it is assembled, but it can also be soft when stored with filling.

The oldest Linzer torte-known written recipe was in 1653, and similarly Linzer cookies use the same recipe as Linzertorte but presented in cookie form. It is a cookie sandwich: the top cookie, dusted with confectioners sugar, has a cutout so the preserves are visible, (known as Linzer eyes).  While the traditional cutout is circular, all sorts of shapes, such as hearts, are also popular.

This lovely, nicely spiced cookie is perfect with a cup of tea or glass of cold milk!  I searched and searched and tested many many recipes until I found this one, which was soft and tender with a slight pepper taste on the finish.  Of course I tweaked the recipe every so lightly to make it my own.

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Vanillekipferl originate from Vienna, Austria, and are a specialty of the Bavarian town of Nördlingen. Traditionally, they are made at Christmas and are very well known in Europe. Thus, they can be enjoyed all year long and are often for sale in Viennese coffee shops. 

I make mine with almonds.

According to folklore, this name goes back to 1720, when the daughter of one of Nuremberg's master lebkuechner fell violently ill. Her desperate father baked an especially fine lebuchen, made only with hazelnuts, honey and spices and named it after his daughter Elisabeth: the Elisen Lebkuchen.

German gingerbreads were established by the abbots in Franconian monasteries. Monks had started to use Eucharist wafers to produce gingerbread according to their own secret recipes to help keep the dough from sticking.  Around 1345 a whole new industry of specialized gingerbread bakers (Lebküchner) developed in and around the city of Nuremberg, which became the world gingerbread capital and remains so today.