Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas

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Put the flour, salt and butter in a mixing bowl and, using your fingertips, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugar and mix it through. Now add the egg yolks and vanilla extract and bring everything together into a dough with your hands. Knead for a few minutes. Goat’s cheese and honey – switch the mushrooms for 200g goat’s cheese. Drizzle 1 tbsp honey on each portion, and sprinkle with thyme and some snipped chives before serving. Place on the prepared baking sheets, leaving 2cm/¾in between each, and bake in the centre of the oven for 22–25 minutes until golden brown all over, turning the sheet around once halfway through to ensure an even bake.

Chocolate-coated walnut marzipan - Cool Food Dude Chocolate-coated walnut marzipan - Cool Food Dude

To make the dough, put all of the ingredients into a large bowl and mix using your hands. Knead for a couple of minutes until a supple, silky dough is formed. Divide the dough in half. On a floured surface, roll each half out as thinly as possible. So long as it fits on the baking sheet it doesn’t matter what shape it is, although I aim for a rough oval. The first stage is certainly easy. All I need to do is weigh out flour, sugar, chopped almonds and candied ginger (hopefully crystallised ginger counts as the same thing, as that’s all the supermarket had) and bung it all in a mixing bowl, along with a pinch of sea salt, a teaspoon of baking powder and some chopped dark chocolate, which I break into pieces with my fingers. I give it all a good stir before adding in three eggs and mixing into a dough.

so that it is completely covered. Lift gently onto the baking paper and continue until all squares are covered. Sprinkle each square with a little flaky sea salt and allow to set before boxing up. Lebkuchen are often called gingerbread in English, which Dunk finds “somewhat misleading.” Lebkuchengewürz (Lebkuchen spice mix, recipe follows) is made up of roughly seven spices; along with ground ginger, Dunk’s version includes anise, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander and mace. I try them anyway. They’re certainly crisp! Despite the very scorched edges, there’s hints of ginger and the dashes of chocolate and sea salt are nice. I’ll definitely make them again (and keep a closer eye on the temperature and timings!) A celebratory chocolate that looks showstoppingly good yet is a cinch to make. In Germany, Kirschwasser, a double-distilled morello cherry brandy, is often used with chocolate, most famously in a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, and these little Swiss peaks are no exception – sometimes I also sit a sour cherry at the bottom of the foil case before piping the chocolate in.

Anja Cook this: Lebkuchenherzen — Lebkuchen hearts — from Anja

Now food writer Anja Dunk has collected together a whole slew of festive German bakes in her new cookbook, Advent. Cut the marzipan into 1cm/3/8in squares and, using a fork held horizontally with the tines pointing upwards to balance the marzipan on, dip each square carefully into the chocolate, Crumble the yeast (or sprinkle if using dried) into the tepid milk and stir to dissolve. Pour the yeasted milk into the flour mixture and, using your hands, bring the ingredients together into a rough dough. Tip the dough on to a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes until it becomes more elastic. Form it into a ball and nestle it into the bottom of the bowl. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and set aside in a warm spot to rise for 1-3 hours until almost doubled in size. (Alternatively, put the flour, sugar, salt and citrus zests into the bowl of a free-standing electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the butter and egg. Pour in the yeasted milk and knead for 5 minutes until the dough is elastic. Cover the bowl and set aside, as above.)I was going to bring you the Stollen recipe today, but for many reasons (including the words in the introduction to this recipe) I decided, with a glad heart, to share the Christbrot — the Christmas Bread with Dried Fruit — with you. And I must own up here, that I made it with chopped dried apricots in place of the candied peel, used a little more rum than instructed, and then realised only when it was too late that I'd forgotten to add the almonds I'd so carefully weighed out! But it was de-luscious like that, I may have to do exactly the same next time I make it, which will most definitely be soon. The kneading in of the fruits is not light work, but patience is more than rewarded.

Strudel, Noodles and Dumplings: The New Taste of German Strudel, Noodles and Dumplings: The New Taste of German

Rather than ice this, I’ve played around with paper-cut snowflakes as icing sugar templates and the results are beautifully festive; a doily, too, works just as well. Heat the cream in a saucepan over a medium heat, stirring from time to time to avoid it scorching on the bottom. Take it off the heat just before it comes to a boil. Add the chocolate and butter or coconut oil, and stir with a wooden spoon until both are dissolved. Mix in the Kirschwasser and beat for a minute until smooth and glossy. Refrigerate for 45 minutes so it stiffens up slightly. Put the flour, sugar, salt and citrus zests into a large bowl and mix together with a wooden spoon, then add the melted butter and egg. How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. August is like a pause before real life begins again in September, so it’s a second chance to set up rituals and rhythms that boost happiness and work for you. Christbrot is very similar to a Weihnachtsstollen (Christmas stollen), but lighter in texture, and is best eaten freshly baked without needing time to mature. This is one of the reasons why a Christbrot is more popular to bake at home than a Stollen each year. It isn’t hard to make Christbrot but the method involves a triple rise, so you’ll need to set a morning or afternoon aside if you choose to make it. But I got there in the end, made sure my little sausages of cookie dough were far enough apart on the baking tray so they didn’t spread into each other in the oven, and was pleased with the final result. These biscuits are traditional Advent sweet treats in both the Netherlands, where they are usually eaten around 6 December (St Nikolaus day), and in Germany, where they are eaten throughout the whole run-up to Christmas. Usually they’re decorated with images relating to Nikolaus, and more often than not have windmills depicted on them.