The big baking post

Dear reader,

As we speak, a large pot of homemade mincemeat is cooling on the stove, soon to be laced with brandy and left overnight for the flavours to blend. Commissioned by my boss to bake 2 dozen mince pies, I feel a little nervous, especially since I don't have the proper sized tin, only a muffin mould and cutters which are too small. Since the begiing of December I have made around 200 German Christmas cookies or Plätzchen. Last week I made a mincemeat cheesecake and on Sunday the flat smelled of oranges and freshly baked gingerbread as I prepared a snow topped spice cake and some orangettes. In the small hours of this morning I made Dan Lepard's cranberry chocolate snow cookies as the sky was turning the loveliest pink and orange. They were so good that I ate at least 12 of them, yes really, me who was always so self-righteous about only ever eating one transformed into a quivering wreck who raids the biscuit tin. If there was ever a case for baking overdose, it could well be me and it's not even Christmas yet.

Still, as Mae West once said, too much of a good thing can be wonderful. In the spirit of seasonal excess, I'll be posting a series of recipes, hopefully every day until Sunday, beginning with this post on Christmas cookies. I've never really been a fan of shop biscuits or boxes of chocolates, however expensive they may be. There are always the caramels, liqueurs and coconut ones which I hate left at the bottom and it always seems too much. Yet a little bag of homemade goodies makes a lovely gift, much nicer than a boring voucher or another CD and I guarantee that your friends will really appreciate the time and effort you've put in for them. I made all the Plätzchen below over about four days but you might not have the time or energy for that which I quite understand. The Spekulatius are by far the simplest and quickest, followed by the cranberry and chocolate snow cookies then the vanilla crescents, Linzer Augen and mini Stollen. The Lebkuchen and cinnamon stars are the fiddliest and most time consuming, although also the most popular. Whichever you choose, I'm sure they'll be most appreciated.

Vanilla crescents (recipe from Mingou I posted here)

Keep in a metal tin for 4-6 weeks in a cool place

Linzer Augen (recipe from Mingou I posted here)

Keep in a metal tin for 4-6 weeks in a cool place

Spekulatius

I bought my patterned form from Karstadt but any large department store in Germany should stock nice ones. If you can't find it, just use ordinary cutters in the shape of your choice.

Makes around 80

500g flour

250g butter

250g natural cane sugar

a pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 200° or 175° fan assisted. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix until you have a smooth dough.

2. Roll the dough out to around 5 mm thick and cut out shapes or if using a form press the dough onto the pattern evenly with a rolling pin or your hands. Place on a baking sheet covered with parchment.

3. Bake for around 10 minutes then remove carefully and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Keep in an airtight container for 4-6 weeks

Zimtsterne (cinammon stars). Recipe from the December issue of Meine Familie und ich.

I chose a different recipe from previous years in order to avoid serving raw egg white so I could give it to kids and older people. It's basically pretty similar but this time the icing is applied before baking.

Makes around 60

4 egg whites from medium sized eggs

a pinch of salt

350g icing sugar

500g ground almonds

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 tablespoon zest from an unwaxed lemon

icing sugar for rolling out

1. Beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff then fold in the icing sugar. Beat at maximum speed on your hand mixer for another 10 minutes. Put 5 tablespoons of egg whites to one side.

2. Mix the almonds with the cinnamon and lemon zest. With a large whisk, gently blend in the egg whites and leave to cool for 30 minutes.

3. Divide the dough into small portions and roll each one out between two sheets of plastic in order to avoid having a super sticky dough that remains glued to the worktop (I'm talking from experience). It should be around 5mm thick. Using a star shaped cutter, regularly dipped in icing sugar, cut out the cookies and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment, gathering up the remaining bits and rolling out again until you have no dough left over. Brush the reserved egg white mixture over the stars and leave to dry for an hour.

4. Preheat the oven to 150°C (fan assisted 130°C). Bake the stars for 12-14 minutes and transfer to a rack to cool. They should be slightly golden and chewy inside.

Keep in a metal tin for 2-3 weeks

Elisen-Lebkuchen (Recipe from the December issue of Meine Familie und ich)

Elisen-Lebkuchen are a little different from the normal Lebkuchen because there is no flour but a mix of nuts and spices instead. The cookies are pretty easy to make but decorating them takes a long time. However, all my friends loved them the best so maybe it's worth making the effort.

Makes around 60

4 medium sized eggs

1 teaspoon lemon juice

150g icing sugar

2 teaspoons Lebkuchengewürz or mixed spice if you don't live in Germany

200g ground almonds

200g ground hazelnuts

a pinch of salt

1 tablespoon zest from an unwaxed lemon

60 Backoblaten or wafers, 0.5cm (see here for more info or you can skip them if there aren't any in your supermarket)

250g bittersweet or dark chocolate, depending on your preference

chopped almonds for decorating

1. Preheat the oven to 160° or 140° for fan assisted ones. In a large bowl beat together the eggs, lemon juice and icing sugar vigourously by hand or with a mixer for around 10 minues or until thick and creamy. Add the Lebkuchengewürz, ground almonds, hazelnuts, salt and lemon zest and blend with a metal spoon.

2. Distribute the wafers on a baking sheet covered with parchment and place one heaped teaspoon of mixture on each Oblaten. Bake for around 15 minutes. Remove and leave to cool.

3. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or the microwave, stopping to stir every 30 seconds if you're using the latter. I found that melting all the chocolate at once wasn't such a good idea because it started to set before I'd finished decorating so do smaller amounts one after the other if possible.

4. Brush each Lebkuchen with melted chocolate and scatter some chopped almonds on top.

Keep in a metal tin for 4-6 weeks. Place a slice of apple inside that you change regularly and don't close the tin completely so the cookies stay soft.

Chocolate cranberry snow cookies from a recipe by Dan Lepard in the Guardian here. So easy and delicious!

Mini Stollen ((Recipe from the December issue of Meine Familie und ich)

Makes around 80

For the dough

250g flour, plus more for rolling out and the worktop

1 pack of dried yeast or half a cube of fresh

1 tablespoon milk, slightly warmed

70g sugar

125g low fat quark/curd cheese/fromage blanc

a pinch of salt

one medium egg

80 raisins

50g candied orange peel

50g candied lemon peel

a little lemon juice

Extra

100g of butter for brushing on top

100g icing sugar for decorating

1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and form a well in the centre. In another bowl mix or crumble the yeast with the warm milk and 1/2 teaspoon sugar and pour into the well. Mix with some of the surrounding flour. Leave for 30 minutes.

2. When the time's up, add in the quark, salt, egg, remaining sugar, raisins, candied orange and lemon peel and the lemon juice and knead until blended. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

3. Roll out the dough on a floured worktop until 2.5cm thick. Cut into rectangles 10cm wide and 20 cm long. With the edge of your hand make an indentation in the middle then fold both sides (lengthways not widthways) over one another so that you have a long Stollen shape.

4. Place on a baking sheep covered with parchment and leave for another 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 180° or 160° fan assisted. Bake the stollen on the middle shelf for 15-20 minutes.

6. Melt the butter and brush generously over the top of the stollen while it's still warm. The more butter you use, the longer it will keep and the better it will taste. Dredge a thick layer of icing sugar as a finishing touch and cut into 1cm thick slices.

Keep in a metal tin for 1-2 weeks

The finished cookies, ready for giving out. Tomorrow I'll be back to talk about cake and give you an update on my mince pies. Wish me luck!

The sky this morning

City of light

In the days when I lived in Lyon, I found there were large chunks of time to myself which were mainly filled by walking through the city, visitng the market on the Boulevard de la Croix Rousse just above where I lived and in the Part Dieu library in which I dreamed of climbing dangerous mountains in the Alps and in between, immersed myself in learning German with the Assimil method. Having little money made me appreciate the simple pleasures like stopping off at my favourite bakeries near Masséna métro stop, one of which was called Le Fil de l'ange as I recall (literally The angel's thread) for the most amazing croissants. There were the free lunchtime concerts at the Opéra and evening performances there with cheap tickets for amazing productions of works by Monteverdi, Janeczek and Richard Strauss. Every week, I'd post a new advert on Lyon web offering private English lessons to which I had quite a few positive responses. One of them was a mother of a little boy called N. whose father was Canadian. The boy didn't much enjoy practising English with his Dad so they thought it would be better to have a teacher twice a week. We met outside the Town Hall of Caluire in the suburbs of Lyon on the 1st September, the rentrée. I can still picture N. coming towards us, chatting to his schoolmates, with a large rucksack on his back. He was small, brown haired and wore glasses. My duties would be to pick him up from school twice a week, walk the short distance home with him, prepare his goûter or snack and speak English for an hour. After that we could walk around the grounds of the apartment complex where there was even a tennis court on which we would be able to play in summer. It became part of my natural routine cycling up the steep hills to the Croix Rousse and beyond on my bike I had bought the winter before. Other cyclists made fun of me because of the large BMX helmet I insisted on wearing but I was (and still am) a terrible cyclist and lived in mortal fear of accidents.

The apartment in Caluire was large and full of light. I used to gaze intensely at the bookshelves packed with paperback novels like Le Zèbre which later became one of my favourite films. I would pour N. and myself a large glass of thick guava juice before we settled down to English. He was sweet but from the very beginning, it was a battle of wills because he hated the lessons and would gaze longingly out of the window at the beautiful evening he was missing. Quite frankly, who could blame him? We tried sessions on a grassy bank outside but the cries and games of his friends proved even more of a distraction. Things came to a head one chilly afternoon when he repeatedly turned the television on to watch skiing. Whenever I turned it off, he insisted that his mother would want him to watch because she used to be a monitrice de ski, an excuse I refused to accept and a huge argument developed. Looking back, I can see I was too inexperienced to make the lessons fun for him and didn't do a good job but perhaps his parents were simply too ambitious for him to become perfectly bilingual at such a young age. After a few months, I handed in my notice to take another class instead. Just before that though, I can remember N. and his father taking me back to Lyon by car since my an enormous shard of glass had pucntured my bike tyre and it was cold. The streets were ablaze with lights and full of crowds of warmly dressed people. This was the first week of December, a special time for the Lyonnais as they place a candle in every window to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. Regardless of your beliefs, there was something amazing about seeing flickering lights all through the city as well as the spectacular illuminations of the monuments in different colours. People jostled each other clasping cups of mulled wine and crêpes filled with Nutella to ward off the cold.

I was reminded of all this with the Berlin festival of lights which started last Thursday. It's not quite as romantic as Lyon but still a special feeling as you travel round the city, seeing the floodlights at Alex in the distance as you try to warm your fingers in between taking photos and finish the evening in a café where the only free seat is tucked away in the corner to drink hot chocolate. On the way home, you pass by partygoers whose evening has only just begun; they'll be there in the early hours, bleary eyed under the pale rays of the moon but I didn't feel I was missing out in the warmth of the train back to Pankow.

Bright lights at the Brandenburg Gate

On Potsdamer Platz

Some of the beautiful but heartstoppingly expensive furniture on my way to Gendarmenmarkt

At Fassbender und Rausch chocolate shop

Personally, I prefer the chocolate Brandenburg gate to the real one!

On Gendarmenmarkt

The cold evenings are closing in and today the sun has deserted Berlin, with nothing but a mass of soggy leaves on the pavement and lingering regrets for all those wasted moments last summer. I've already been stocking up my bookshelves, ready for those days when it's best to keep the curtains closed and stay in pyjamas drinking tea. There's Orhan Pamuk's Snow (obvious for winter, I know), Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Claudie Gallay's Les Déferlentes for Venice and the Adriatic in 10 days and Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. What's on your list and do you have any tips?

To finish with, a recipe i tried for the first time yesterday and immediately feel in love with, as did everyone else who tried it; Julia's Blueberry and Almond Cake as adapted by Patoumi.

Blueberry and almond cake

4 eggs

200g sugar

120g almond paste

190g flour

60g butter in strips

500g blueberries

1. Beat the sugar and eggs together until pale and frothy.

2. Grate the almond paste into the eggs, followed by the flour and blend well.

3. Pour the batter into a greased and lined springform tin.

4. Scatter the fruit on the surface, pushing them in slightly, place on the thin strips of butter and sprinkle a little sugar on top.

5. Bake in the oven at 200°C for 45 minutes.

Life aquatic

At my parents' house in Derbyshire, there is the memory of running through sprinklers wearing just a swimsuit in the summer months or of sitting in a shady corner of the garden with my book drinking iced tea. Inside, the old brick walls meant that it was deliciously cool, the ideal place to while away the school holidays. Later on in Lyon, it was to the mountains that I escaped when the temperature rose. On Friday evenings, J. and I would set off with enough water, food and our hiking equipment for four days; there was the satisfaction of seeing the silhouette of the Fourvière cathedral become smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror and the sight of the heat flickering on the tarmac in front of us. The best part though was after we passed Grenoble as the road increased in altitude and I finally felt able to breath again. I can never forget the magnificent sight of the Meije with its immense galciers and three fingers of rock at the top rising up before us as we came over the Col de Lautaret . Getting out to admire the suroundings, a trail of British classic cars whizzed by and I remember that I slept amazingly well that night, watched over by these giants of rock and ice. Returning there, the mountains seemed like old friends; I took pleasure in identifying them on our hikes and could imagine no better place than here with the silence and wilderness. We slept close to where we would begin our walk early the next morning and when long shadows cast by the peaks above us appeared, we would go to a nearby restaurant for raclette and a dessert of fromage blanc and fruit. Getting up early in the dusk, our eyes became adapted to the changing light of the morning that was soon to begin. A little later there were often the piercing whistles of the marmottes or the chamois scuttling away. Returning at midday when many others were just setting off, there was the satisfying feeling of sore muscles and aching feet.

The Barre des Ecrins

La Meije

You might find it strange then that I left all that behind for life in a city. To be honest, I find it impossible to explain it to myself; perhaps I simply changed or realised that the anonymity of the city is what I prefer after all. Yet every summer I miss it; I find the city too choked with traffic, search desperately for that shady corner where I can feel cool and am unable to sleep. Sorry for my absence on this blog (and also on your blogs) but the heatwave last weekend made the idea of baking or sitting in front of the computer truly unbearable. I needed to get out; some readers will think it's a crime not to be outside when the sun is shining but with 37°C, outdoor activities weren't exactly appealing. Instead, I headed for the aquarium with its tanks full of fascinatingly scary jellyfish, delicate seahorses and starfish and a rather frightening shark. I found myself transfixed by the elegance of underwater life and wished that I could too dive to the bottom of the ocean. There was a morning spent at the Helmut Newton Foundation where I was amazed by the simplicity of the clothes that he wore for someone who worked in fashion, admired his collection of cameras, especially the Rolleiflexes and wondered where he found all these statuesque, athletic girls to pose nude for him. Then there were the trips to the cinema, the biggest number at once for years; it didn't start too well with The Private Life of Pippa Lee which I hated. After one hour I was not only irritated but also bored so snuck into a screening of the Ghostwriter in the next auditorium (the only advantage of mutiplexes, aside from the air conditioning). The next day though, while everyone was crammed round TV screens in bars watching Germany play, I had the charming Lichtblick cinema to myself for a personal screening of Wenders' Himmel Über Berlin (Wings of Desire) with the occasional whirr of the projector as the man at the front desk checked whether everything was in focus. Lastly, there was Marcello, Marcello with its candy coloured houses on an island in the middle of the sea where I'd only be too happy to spend an afternoon. Coming out, I wondered where I could find a pink gingham dress like the central character and have a glass of limoncello.

Amazing moon jellyfish

A healthy start to the day

At the Europa Centre

I love this girl's dress with Campbell's soup tins

Not everyone is a Germany fan you know...

Alone at the cinema

On a sadder note, the wonderful C/O Berlin will have to move out of the old post office where it was possible to see amazing photo exhibitions by Nan Goldin, Annie Leibovitz, Ostkreuz and soon Magnum. I've always been charmed by its peeling walls, the old basketball court with semi-circles still on the floor and the feeling of entering somehow into a lost past in an area which has sadly become too touristy. In the current Ostkreuz exhibition, I was most drawn to the photos ofSibylle Bergemann from Berlin. One was of her old flat close to Friedrichstraße, how after the wall came down the rent gradually went up and up until they could no longer afford to stay there. Before they left, they held one last exhibition, a "finissage" to say farewell; more than 5,000 attended. It's already heartbreaking to think how it will be when C/O closes its doors in Oranienburger Straße for the last time.

Frozen chocolate chip cookie dough from Joy the Baker - yum. Find the recipe here

David Lebovitz's almond cake was one of the best cakes I've ever made. For a start it managed to be truly spectacular, then there was the smell of marzipan filling the apartment on a lazy afternoon. It was damp, sweet but not too much and irresistable.