Welcome to the baking section of my website! Here you can find all of my posts related to bread and other baked goods like strudel, flammkuchen, and cakes. In the top section, you can find posts about the theory and technology of baked goods along with some posts discussing the cultural significance and history of bread in Germany. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you can find all of my baking recipes. These range from sweet goods like doughnuts and apple strudel to rustic bread like spelt bread and Swabian specialties like pretzels. My blog focuses mainly on savory baked goods. A lot of blogs on German food already feature a ton of traditional cake recipes but the baked goods you might find in a German bakery are only rarely featured on them. I want to fill in that gap because, for me, it is much more fun to bake savory goods.
Check out my new book on how to bake bread the German way:
This book covers the how’s and why’s of bread-making. It is a comprehensive guide on bread ingredients, techniques, and the general bread-making process. It helps you to gain a deeper understanding and enables you to bake bread without a recipe.
Are you new to bread-baking? Start here:
Deep dives in baking technology for advanced bakers:
Bread from a cultural point of view:
Browse my collection of bread recipes:
Let’s talk about pepper – Part 6: Review of rare and exotic pepper varieties
My pepper series is about to come to an end. Today, I want to introduce you to even more types of pepper available for purchase that I haven’t covered previously. I will give you my taste impressions of African, Vietnamese, as well as Indian pepper cultivars. Some of these pepper varieties are part of the Piper nigrum family while others…
What is Swabia?
The recipes on this blog are mostly from Swabia, a region in Southern Germany. Yet many people, even in Germany, often mistakenly call the inhabitants of the modern-day state Baden-Württemberg Swabians. However, a Swabian state in modern-day Germany doesn’t exist. The majority of the Swabian population lives in Württemberg and the western part of Bavaria. There is no clear definition…
In defense of meat
Eating meat is deeply entrenched across most cultures across the world. Humans have based their diets on animal flesh since prehistoric times. It’s assumed by many scientists, that the willingness to eat meat has been a big factor as to why we evolved to who we are. However, the amount of meat we eat has changed significantly over time. According…
Why are emulsifiers (surfactants) added to bread dough?
Emulsifiers increase the bread dough stability. This allows bakers to proof their dough for longer which results in a larger loaf volume. Adding to that, emulsifiers soften the bread crumb and delay hardening during storage. The most common emulsifiers used in bread making are diacetyl tartaric acid ester of monoglycerides (DATEM), sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL), mono- and diglycerides, monoglyceride derivatives,…
How to make candy – Part 2: Crystallization
In the first part of my candy-making series, I have talked about the importance of the water content in candy-making. There I have discussed that most candy is an amorphous material instead of an ordered crystalline solid. We can distinguish two amorphous states: the rubbery state and the glassy state. Rubber is chewy whereas glass is hard and brittle. Whether…
