Recipe collections

Almond cake with fresh raspberries, flavoured with cinnamon and lemon zest. It’s flourless, dairy and gluten free, yet wonderfully airy and soft.

German apple Kuchen with roasted apples and breadcrumb and nut topping. Kuchen, I recall, is what my Grandmother used to bake on Sundays, to be consumed, still warm, after lunch with a coffee.

Cheat's apple strudel with apple chunks and raisins wrapped in sweet tea bread dough. This is a cheat’s recipe. There’s no stretching and stretching and stretching and reading love letters through the dough involved.

Black forest gâteau, rich and dark chocolate base layered with pillows of cream swathing fresh, lightly roasted cherries. A luxurious idea for the next birthday or celebration bake.

Blueberry cookies, chewy and delicious, with fresh blueberries or bilberries (wild European blueberries), easy and quick to make as there’s no need to chill the dough.

Oven braised beef brisket, tender and flavoursome with onions, mushrooms and sweet wine. Beef brisket turns almost into pulled beef after 4 hours of slow roasting in the oven, and the rendered sauce is to die for.

Butter Stollen, German Christmas bread, at its most indulgent. Two kinds of Stollen in one recipe: packed with fruit and almonds, and swirled with smooth nut filling.

Traditional recipe for chocolate covered lebkuchen or gingerbreads. Chocolate coated and with jam filling, they are soft and indulgent. And the fun of dipping cookies in melted chocolate is the spirit of Christmas!

My Christmas Stollen is packed with fruit, almonds and a delicious strand of homemade marzipan. Stollen, the 700 years old festive German bread is much easier to make than Italian panettone and it's just as lovely on Christmas morning. The loaves are shaped to resemble baby Jesus swaddled in clothing.

Fermented red cabbage with chillies and ginger, Europe’s answer to kimchi. Red cabbage sauerkraut is made exactly like the white but it’s vibrant and a bit more crunchy.

Seelen means souls in German, and in Schwabia it means fantastically tasty spelt sourdough bread rolls, rustic and completely artisan.

Homemade muesli with oat, wheat and barley flakes, nuts, seeds and fruit and a good pinch of cinnamon. That’s the way to start a day!

Lebkuchen - soft, honeyed cookies, similar to gingerbreads. Lebkuchen are of German provenance, invented by Franciscan monks in the 13th century.

Marzipan buns flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom. Homemade marzipan fills these soft sweet buns baked in a muffin tin. These are perfect breakfast buns!

Marzipan and shortbread biscuit chocolate coated bars, made from scratch. Like Twix, only better; like Ritter Sport’s all best bars combined into one.

Marzipan truffles, chocolate covered balls of homemade marzipan, and the chocolate is also homemade! Vegan, easy and utterly delicious.

Mohnstollen is a stollen log with poppy seeds, traditionally baked in Germany, Poland (makowiec) and Austria for Christmas. Brioche-like Stollen dough is filled with sweet and spiced poppy seeds and rolled into a log.

Partybrot, traditional German sharing bread, white and brown pull-apart rolls. It's bread baked in Germany and Switzerland, tear 'n' share rolls perfect for potluck.

Soft and rich brioche base with plum and cinnamon crumble topping. It means brioche is not just for breakfast. It means turning bread into cake!

Traditional poppy seed cake in a bundt tin, made the old fashioned way, by soaking poppy seeds in milk. It's buttery and tender, dense with blue poppy seeds.

Pork schnitzel, the German classic, gets an Italian makeover: lean pork loin flattened and covered with Parma ham, sage leaf and a little Parmesan.

Raspberry and almond slice, a gorgeous buttery traybake with flaked almonds, sugar and butter topping: it’s easier to make and tastier than Bakewell!

Roast goose breast with apples and raisins, best seared in a skillet to render fat, then finished off in the oven. With apple and raisin topping to cut through the rich flavour of the meat.

Seeded light rye bread with linseed, sunflower and pumpkin. This mixed rye and wheat loaf is leavened with yeast and tastes a little like a blonde pumpernickel. It's easy to bake and best sliced a day after baking.

Pumpkin and sunflower seeded rye sourdough, German style blonde Pumpernickel. Sourdough on rye starter with only a small addition of wheat flour which can be replaced with spelt.

Stollen bites, mini treat versions of the German fruited Christmas log. I make them with pistachio marzipan and apple marmalade and they are completely irresistible.

Swiss cheese tart, käsewähe, can be served hot or cold and is equally delicious. It's a savoury cheesecake with a shortcrust base and cheesy but light filling.

Homemade German pretzels, or Laugenbretzeln sprinkled with salt crystals, soft and chewy inside and brown glossy outside thanks to a dip in lye or baking soda solution before baking.

Turkey schnitzels coated in dukkah breadcrumbs are an exciting and flavoursome version of the old comfort staple: crunchy and crisp, with delightful, fragrant seasoning.

Zimtsterne are German cinnamon and almond star-shaped cookies baked and gifted during Advent and Christmas. Tiny, dainty and naturally gluten-free, they are like an edible sweet snowflake!