Photo by Anja Dunk
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!
Unless you’re a churchgoer, Advent in this country doesn’t really exist outside of the shopbought Advent Calendar; the glory of this book is that it celebrates it as a proper season, with joys to be savoured each day, for their own sake, rather than as an impatient run-up to the main event. I suppose you could say this is an advent calendar in recipe form: there are 24 chapters, each one dedicated to a different type of baking, each with its own traditions, and all so charmingly illustrated and displayed. Indeed, Anja Dunk’s own linocuts, inspired from traditional German advent calendars, open each chapter. They are beautiful, as are the words she uses to describe making them as a form of escape during lockdown: “I lost myself in deep, dark woods, climbed up snowy mountains and strolled along the frosty pavements of Alpine towns. I skied down slopes and then sat by woodburning stoves with mugs of Glühwein. I gazed at snowflakes swirling outside the kitchen window and watched animals silently tiptoeing through the snow. I stood among resinous pine trees, breathing in deeply as night fell and fires were lit.” There’s such enchantment in this book: it captures the magical entrancement we felt so intensely as small children; I think we need that now.
And then there’s the recipes! I particularly warm to the German tradition of the Bunter Teller — the "bright plate” of cookies and biscuits, each of which mark the season and are made in a particular order. There are many iterations of Lebkuchen, the spiced, gingerbready biscuits/cookies which are a sine non qua of the season; Mohnschnecken or Poppy Seed Snails; Marzipan Spritzgebäck, or Marzipan Shortbread; Haselnuß Kipferl, or Hazelnut Crescents; the fabulously named Doppeldecker, which are two biscuits sandwich with jam, with cut-out shapes on the top biscuits for the jam to gleam through (like jammy dodgers) and so many more, but I must leave myself room to tell you about other wonders. Of course there is Stollen, and also Stollen Bites (and Stollen biscuits!); a Christmas Gugelhupf (think panettone baked in a kind of Bundt tin); Kletzenrot, a dark tea loaf with dried pears, figs, prunes and raisins; Käsebrötchen, which are cheese and poppy seed rolls; and a particular favourite of mine, Reibekuchen, or potato cakes. There is so much more in this really special book: reading it is like warming yourself in front of a crackling log fire.
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.
ADVENT: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas by Anja Dunk (Quadrille, £25).
