Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas

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Advent is an edible countdown in 24 chapters inspired by the idea of traditional paper advent calendars, where you open up a window to reveal an image of winter on the 24 days leading up to Christmas. It is a real gem that I know will be used for very many Christmases to come in my house. The dough is actually very similar to a strudel dough or rough filo (just flour, oil and water) and is incredibly easy to make. It’s important when making this at home to heat the baking sheet up in the oven first as this ensures a crisp base, or if you have a pizza stone that’s even better. I’ve given some suggestions for my favourite alternative flavour combinations below the recipe, but really anything goes for the dough.

Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of…

Why would I save it until Advent? Why give myself a brief 24 days to read, relish and reconnoitre the ingredients. Why would I not enjoy it now, during November and alongside Nigel Slater’s Christmas Chronicles, as virtual immersion in a month-long Continental Christmas Market before actually baking the goodies in the book and enjoying them as part of a relaxing December? 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.)

A slightly less obvious but equally symbolic sign of festivities is the oven –constantly aglow in our home during this period, scenting the house with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, clove and anise as tray upon tray of mouth-watering biscuits bake. 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.

Advent, Anja Dunk: We put the ultimate festive baking Advent, Anja Dunk: We put the ultimate festive baking

Put all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon. Add the butter and mix it into the flour using your fingertips until it has the consistency of fine breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugar along with 1 tablespoon of vodka and blitz again until a smooth paste forms. You may need to add a bit more vodka depending on how fresh the nuts are. As we hunker and snuggle around the stove each day, we are entertained, warmed and comforted by it. If ever there was a time for the oven to prove its worth as the real hearth of our home, advent is it. I hope you enjoy making these festive German bakes, which are made to share with friends and family for years – together or as presents. Almond domes recipe Now food writer Anja Dunk has collected together a whole slew of festive German bakes in her new cookbook, Advent. They’re the kind of biscuits that most families make because they’re so easy,” says Dunk of Lebkuchenherzen. “The dough is sturdy so children can roll it out nicely and cut shapes out without worrying too much that they will break.”The Advent season is one of the most special times of the year, when candles twinkle, the Christmas tree is decorated, and the smells of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove fill the kitchen. 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. 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. Available as just an ebook, and a short, sharp read, is Enjoying a Self-Care Christmas: Easy Ways to keep the Joy of Christmas, and your Sanity, intact. It’s an easy read, with ideas and hints to keep you sane through the season. The self-care advent calendar is one I’ve followed for a few years now, and it really is a small daily dose of calm in a manic month.

Advent, Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Advent, Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of

Hardly surprisingly, this time of year abounds in Christmassy cookbooks, but Anja Dunk’s Advent offers something excitingly different. For one thing, the Germans do Christmas like no one else; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that much of what we think of a proper, traditional Christmas we owe to them, only they do it more so! Add the egg and bring everything together into a dough with your hands. (Alternatively, simply put all the ingredients into the bowl of an electric free-standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix until an even dough is formed.) 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. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Put the butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat with a hand-held electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and whisk again until combined. Add the grated marzipan, flour, ground almonds, cinnamon and baking powder, then stir until well mixed.In one bite-sized biscuit, they swept me directly to cold snowy cobbled streets with people’s breath hanging in clouds under the glow of street lamps. There was just something about them that seemed so old-fashioned that was hard to put my finger on – the vodka somehow brought a mysterious feeling of cold into your mouth.

Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of

Cut out a round piece of paper just larger than the cake. Fold it into four and cut an intricate snowflake design out of it. Unfold the piece of paper and lay it on top of the cake. Dust the top with icing sugar before carefully removing the paper. You should be left with a beautiful delicate snowflake on top of your cake. 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.

tsp Lebkuchengewürz (recipe follows), or 1 tsp ground cinnamon mixed with
1 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp ground cloves and 1/4 tsp ground cardamom I couldn’t find any ground hazelnuts, star anise or cloves, so I had to ‘grind’ them myself, and with only a hand-held blender to help, it took ages. And then, instead of being able to just bung everything in a processor, there was rubbing the butter into the flour, and kneading (for another age, it seemed) to get the mixture together and pliable. Everyone goes on about the palaver of the turkey come December 25, but some of the best festive cooking at this time of year is actually spent in the run-up to the big day. The recipe says bake for 25-30 mins until golden, then you let it cool before slicing into individual biscotti and baking for another 25 mins to crisp them up. I sneak a peek halfway through and see my mangled log has already expanded to the edges of the baking tray. Eek! 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.