Krapfen Season

Germany has many "seasons"....asparagus season, mushroom season, truffel season, starkbier season, fruit season, etc.

After New Year's comes Krapfen Season...and this year brings new varieties!

What are krapfen? In their original form, they're basically jelly donuts. Known in other areas of Germany as "Berliners," which is what JFK amusingly called himself in his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.
It's yet another example of German linguistic diversity - In most of Germany they are "Berliners," but in Bavaria they are "Krapfen" and in Berlin and the surrounding states of Brandenburg and Saxony, they are Pfannkuchen (which are what the rest of Germany calls pancakes).  And they have other names in other very small regions. Yes, confusing...especially to us non-native speakers. I've only lived in Bavaria, so I sometimes discover that what I think is German is really Bavarian.

But, back to the tasty pastries... Traditional Krapfen are light, sweet donuts filled with jam (usually apricot, plum, or berry) and topped with powdered sugar, glaze or chocolate. They also are often filled with custard or chocolate.

Since krapfen are traditionally eaten on New Years Eve and during Fasching (Carnival, Mardi Gras, etc), the krapfen season runs from New Years to Lent. We are in full swing now!

Normally, we don't see too much beyond chocolate, but this year, they've invented some new varieties. Some are traditional filled donuts, but others are more like deconstructed jelly donuts....with the filling sandwiched between two halves of the donut and with a topping.

Here we have traditional krapfen (apricot filled with powdered sugar), then Heart Krapfen (straberry jam-filled with a heart-shaped sugar dusting), and the Tiramisu Krapfen. More on those later....

From left to right, Raspberry Krapfen (raspberry mousse filling with raspberry glaze), Black Forest Krapfen (cream-filled, with chocolate topping, chocolate flakes, and cherry), Tiramisu Krapfen, and Vanilla Krapfen (vanilla mousse with sugar glaze).

 And of course, Chocolate. Not sure if these are filled with chocolate cream or custard, but they look delicious!

Herr J and I tried the Tiramisu and Vanilla. (We'll try the others soon....Black Forest and Chocolate are high on the list!)
Both were great choices, but we both liked the Vanilla slightly better. The Tiramisu did indeed taste like tiramisu, with a fluffy espresso/kahlua flavored cream in the middle and cocoa powder on top. But the Vanilla would be my choice for eating a whole one. It was the same fluffy filling, but with a very delicate vanilla flavor, balanced by the sugary glaze. And the donut part of both were light, chewy, and perfectly flavored.

Just be careful eating them...they're impossible to eat without spilling sugar (or cocoa) on you or dripping some cream out of the other side. Happy eating!

German Christmas Treats

Every culture has its own traditions for the holidays, and food plays a big part in Germany's.

For the month before Christmas, you can enjoy most of these in the Christmas markets that spring up in most public squares in the towns. We've sampled a taste of everything for you here.

First, of course, is Glühwein....It's basically mulled wine and is the most traditional hot beverage enjoyed in the cold in the German-speaking countries. You'll find all sorts of varieties and flavors these days, and even more modern hot cocktails (Hot Caipirinhas, etc).  At a minimum, most stalls offer Kinderpunsch (non-alcoholic), Glühwein, and Glühwein mit Schuss (Glühwein with a shot of rum). It's a good way to stay warm while walking around the markets in winter...warms your hands and your insides!

Gluhwein and Lebkuchen at the Nürnberg Christmas Market

 Gluhwein Varieties

 Vanillekipferl

These small, crescent-shaped cooies are vanilla flavored and coated in powdered sugar. They're usually made with ground almonds. You'll find these throughout most of Germany, as well as in Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. They vary from kind of tasteless to sublime...luckily these were perfectly vanilla tasting and melt-in-your-mouth. Excellent with coffee!  Vanillekipferl

Lebkuchen                 

Lebkuchen

One of the most ubiquitous Christmas treats around this part of Germany is Lebkuchen. It comes in many varieties and shapes, can be iced or dipped in chocolate... It's spiced a bit like gingerbread, but not exactly the same. They're usually made with ground nuts, honey, and spices such as anise, cloves, ginger, and cardamom.

The quality also can range quite widely, but good Lebkuchen is really tasty and not at all dry. It orinally cam from Franconia, with Nürnberg now the famous source. Actually, Nürnberg has been quite successful in getting their products under "Protected Designation of Origin." (meaning that Nürnberger bratwurst can only come from Nürnberg, and Nürnberger Lebkuchen can only come from Nürnberg). The original variety usually sits atop what's basically the same as a giant communion wafer. Supposedly the monks used it to keep the cookies from sticking to the pan.

Lebkuchen Männer Chocolate Covered Lebkuchen

Dominostein

DominosteinNot my favorite Christmas treat, but they're not bad. These Dominos are a 3 layer treat, dipped in either dark or milk chocolate. Usually it's a lebkuchen bottom, with cherry or apricot jelly in the middle, and marzipan or cream on the top layer. These originated in Dresden, but are sold throughout Germany.

Spekulatius   

Then we have Spekulatius, Herr J's favorite. These are so tasty! Their taste like a combination of shortbread and gingerbread. They're thin and crunchy and come with designs stamped into them.

These are more traditionally for St. Nikolas Day (November 6th) and made of flour, brown sugar, honey, butter, and spices such as nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, and cloves.

Though they have stamped rolling pins and silicone molds now, the traditional method involves a hand-carved wooden mold. I prefer the spiced variety, but they also have butter Spekulatius, chocolate Spekulatius, and ones with almond slices on the bottom.

They seem to have originated in the Rhineland-Pfalz area, but are found widely across the country, and in Belgium and the Netherlands. Probably because they're so good!

I'm hoping these also might make a good substitute for graham-cracker crust in pies and bars. Graham crackers just don't exist here and key lime pie is soooo good!

Zimtsterne

Literally translated as "cinnamon stars," these little cookies from Schwabia are so tasty! They're chewy, cinnamony, with a crispy sweet icing on top. As with many of the Christmas cookies, these are made with ground almonds instead of flour.

Baumkuchen

 

While they just look like a chocolate covered stack of donuts, this cake is quite impressive. It's also common in Austria. A good, properly made baumkuchen can be rather pricey, too.  The name "tree cake" comes from how it's cooked over a spit (rotisserie style) and the cake batter is applied layer by layer creating tree rings in the cake. Quite an intensive process, sometimes with 20 layers. Then the cake is take off the rotisserie, cut into pieces, and dipped in chocolate or fondant.

BaumkuchenschnittenThere's also a version called Baumkuchenschnitten ("tree cake sections") that are little pieces of the cake, dipped in chocolate. They also have the tree rings on them. The ones I tried have champagne in the cake and are really a little slice of heaven. So moist and tasty, with high quality milk chocolate.

Marzipan Potatoes

    I've not been able to find anyone who knows why marzipan potatoes are traditional gifts in Advent, but they are everywhere. We tried the little ones, but in the markets they sell huge life-sized potatoes, made entirely of marzipan and dusted with cocoa powder. Some friends here say that it just was easier to make potatoes than anything else.  They're marzipan, so are tasty, but in small doses.

 

Coconut Macaroons and Pfeffernüsse

Not to be confused with macarons, these are the chewy coconut ones we all know, with the bottoms dipped in dark chocolate. So tasty!

And on the right are Pfeffernüsse ("Pepper Nuts"), little hard, round cookies made of spiced dough dipped in icing. They're originally Dutch, but have made it down through Denmark, Germany, Austria. The taste is good - a bit spicier than gingerbread, usually with pepper included - but they are super hard and dry. These are traditional for St. Nikolaus Day (5th or 6th of December, depending on the region), but are sold throughout the Christmas season. You need to dip them in coffee, really, or wait a few weeks till they soften up. Given the choice, I'd take the macaroons and skip the pfeffernüsse.

Schneeball

These "Snowballs" are a fun contribution from the beautiful, old little town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. They're basically strips of dough, balled up, fried, and dusted in sugar. They were originally served at weddings in the Franconia region, but now are served year round. OK, I know it's not exactly a Christmas treat only, but the name makes it fit this post!

The plain ones dusted in powdered or cinnamon sugar are the originals, but now they sell 20+ varieties - with different fillings (caramel, Cointreau, marzipan, etc) and toppings (chocolates, nuts, coconut, etc).  We tried an original with cinnamon sugar from Diller in the Nürnberg train station. Pretty tasty! I think the filled ones would be too much, but maybe I'll try one when I finally make it to Rothenburg. It's a well-preserved walled city with a cool night watchman tour.

Candied Nuts

Candied Nuts at the Nürnberg Christmas Market

This is one of those times where I WISH that a photo could capture a scent. The smell of these candied nuts cooking is intoxicating. It makes me forget my words and just follow the scent, like a rat led by the Piper.

These are not exclusively Christmas treats - they're common at Oktoberfest and are sold in front of the Marienplatz Kaufhof year round. However, they are always a presence in every Christmas market.

For Christmas only, Lindt makes milk chocolate-covered almonds and hazelnuts, dusted in powdered sugar. They use their special Christmas chocolate, which has some light spices in it and is so good. These are one of Herr J's favorites, and now one of mine. Between the Spekulatius and the Lindt chocolate hazelnuts, I have to admit he has pretty good taste in Christmas treats!

Spitzbuben

These jam-filled sugar cookies are often called German Jam Cookies or Swiss Sandwiches, but the name translates to "rogues" or "scoundrels." They're a nice plain cookie base, with jam (apricot and currant are most common) in between two cookies, and a star or heart window cut in the top cookie. Then they're dusted with powdered sugar.

Stollen

 And it wouldn't be Christmas without fruitcake!  In Germany, we have Stollen, which is a loaf of sweet bread filled with dried fruit and nuts and topped with powdered sugar. They vary quite widely, with "exotic fruit" varieties, marzipan chunks, or other fillings. The German version has been made for Christmas since the 1400's, in Saxony. Dresden still is know as the Stollen capital, I guess like Claxton, Georgia is the fruitcake capital of the US. There's an annual Stollen Festival in Dresden, where a 3-4 ton stollen is paraded through the city and then cut by a ceremonial knife and sold to partiers.

Though Dresdner Stollen is the classic, other regions have created their own. The lady selling Frankish Dresden explained that their variety has fewer nuts and fruit than the super packed Dresdner Stollen. The bakery in my apartment building makes with poppyseed filling or with the same nut filling as used in cinnamon rolls. Not exactly traditional, but really good!

The Company Cafeteria, Part II

Frau A and I recently met up with a friend of mine from high school.  Her sister lives in Germany, and she & her husband were visiting the sister's family and traveling around southern Germany, Switzerland, and France.  We had dinner at one of the nicer Bavarian restaurants in Munich, Wirtshaus in der Au.  Thanks for stopping by, Heidi and Chris!  (Great German names, BTW)

Our dinner together was a reminder that the first German corporate cafeteria post deserves a follow-up.  Here are some more offerings from the office food service.

One common item in colder weather is the "eintopf mit wurst".  This is a bowl of lentil soup with two frankfurters thrown in.  A German food site has over 50 recipes for this!  It can look a little mushy, and tends to be a bit bland, but with a little salt, pepper, and maybe paprika added it's pretty good.  Perfect for you low-carb dieters too.  You just get a strange feeling cutting up a hot dog with knife and fork... in soup.

Unfortunately, the "wurst" in the soups is not the highest quality in a corporate cafeteria.  And it is not bratwurst, but just a standard hot dog style weiner.  No grill here either.  Boiled.  See them floating on the left here:

The above photo is also a warning about a typical mistake in Germany.  If you order "Pizza Pepperoni"  over here you will not get the pizza you expect.  Pepperoni means the vegetable, not the meat.  You will get what you see above, a cheese pizza with a long green pepper on it (or a bunch of smaller ones).  You need to order "Pizza Salami" instead (although they do put salami on it, not the pepperoni style used in the U.S.).

Then there is leberkäse, or shortened to leberkäs.  It's the German meatloaf, made with pork instead of beef, so it looks and tastes completely different.  It is typically Bavarian comfort food, found at every train station (a slice of it is eaten in a roll with mustard), and often even served for breakfast!  In my experience, quality varies greatly (like meatloaf, I guess) but I think there is a reason that the Germans eat it with a lot of mustard, if you know what I mean...

Need something with your leberkäs?  Looking for big and starchy?  Go right for the knödel.  It's a mammoth dumpling -- usually potato but can also be bread-based.  You will need some kind of sauce to add moisture and get it down, that's why it often accompanies roasted pork dishes that come with sauce, like schweinebraten.

Finally, I need to end with something positive: another photo of bienenstich.  Love it.  In the first post it was a stock photo from Wikipedia.  This time, they were serving it in the cafeteria and I grabbed one.  Didn't last long...

The Company Cafeteria, Part I

As with any experience, after enough repetition you get desensitized.  I was reminded of this when Frau A came to visit me at the office, and we went to the cafeteria for lunch.  I can stomach most of the items available, but I thought she might starve!  I’ve since roasted lobster tail and made her other nice dinners to make up for it…

I am located at a large corporate site: about 20 buildings with their own data center and almost 11,000 people working there.  Below is an aerial photo of the campus – it has its own post office and postal code!

There are a lot of mouths to feed, and German efficiency is in full force trying to keep things cheap and fast for the employees (you definitely get a lot for your money here).  Also, lunch is very important in Germany as a social event – bringing food from home and eating at your desk is taboo.  When the clock reaches 11:59, time to head to the cafeteria, get your plastic tray, and line up!

For institutional food, it’s not too bad.  Quality control is strict:  they freeze a bit of each item daily and keep it for a month, so that if there is an outbreak of anything they can thaw out the samples and test them to verify what happened (no problems since I’ve been here).  Let's see what's on the menu.

The Salad Bar

The first thing you need to know is that in Germany – everywhere, not just my company – the salad bar is quite different.  Instead of having lettuce with toppings and other things to mix in, Germans treat salad bar items almost as small side dishes.  For example, you will see lettuce, tomato and feta cheese, but not too many other ingredients for an American mixed salad.  Instead, you will find:  whole boiled eggs, mix of radish and onion, mix of julienne carrots and cucumbers (in a little vinegar), mix of shredded cabbage in vinegar (“kraut”) with onion, and sliced red beets – lots of ‘em.  They do not mix these things in with the greens, but load them in a bowl side-by-side and eat each one separately.  Same thing in restaurants:  salad is often some mix of cabbage, onions, peppers, cucumber, (and often corn!) in oil and vinegar – not a greens/lettuce based mixture with “dry” add-ons and choice of dressing.  And don’t forget the beans….white, kidney, chickpeas, various sprouts, etc.

Likewise, the salad dressing station is quite different too.  The U.S. will typically have oil & vinegar, Italian, French, and maybe parmesan, raspberry vinaigrette, or blue cheese dressings.  Oil and balsamic vinegar are available here, but the Germans have different tastes and definitely like a LOT of dressing.  No German salad bar is complete without the “white dressing” in a generic pour container.  What is it?  I have no idea.  Definitely not a creamy Italian or a ranch.  I think it usually has yogurt or condensed milk, and uses a German “krauter” (herbs) mix that tends to toward dill and chives (and maybe a little garlic/onion).  Frau A hates it – she usually uses a few spoonfuls of the liquid in the feta/bell pepper/cucumber mix, creating a light vinaigrette.  You’ll see in the photo below that there are five variations on that theme in the cafeteria, all in large pitchers to make sure you can drown everything in sight.  Oil & vinegar are on the right, and there is one vinaigrette pitcher in the front, all by itself…

 

There are some croutons today, but they are rare and have no herbs/spices, just plain bread.  Too bad, because good croutons can hide so many sins…

Speaking of bread, you knew this was coming:  pretzels are available every day.  The German rolls (called “semmel” in Bavaria) are also standard.  Pretzels and rolls are located at the soup station.  There is usually one soup, almost always some cream-based vegetable soup with a very mild flavor.  But there is a distinctly German seasoning sauce called simply by its brand, Maggi.  It is a generic flavoring almost like soy sauce (but using other hydrolyzed vegetables) that is frequently added to anything to give some kick.

  

     



The Main Course

The cafeteria has a typical mix of entrees:  Always a German pork dish and varying alternative dishes (e.g. Turkish döner, Italian pastas, or Chinese stir-fry).  They usually have a pizza of the day (flammkuchen on Fridays – awesome!) and get crazy at times with theme weeks, such as “Mediterranean Week”.  Side dishes include daily variations on rice and potatoes of course  (there usually are several potato options!), with the most common vegetables being carrots, cucumbers, and cauliflower.  Warning:  whether it’s for an entrée or a side, Germans take a LOT of sauce.  No kidding, they put it on your plate with a big soup ladle!  For pasta that might be expected, but they use this for tzatziki, jus, or anything else with low viscosity.  Your know your schweinebraten will be swimming!

At times the cafeteria manager must know some of the main dishes will not be too popular, and sets up a “wurst” option – and there is always a huge line.  Who doesn’t want a nice bratwurst with mashed potatoes or fries?  And the Bavarian brats are a foot long!

 

Dessert

This topic overall deserves its own post, because German desserts are probably underrated as a whole.  Unfortunately, the same doesn’t hold true for the mass-production cafeteria versions.  There is always fresh fruit available (Germans really eat healthy in this regard), but the bulk of the options here are puddings/yogurts, of the German “quark” which is actually cheese but tastes like yogurt.  In the first example they offered quark, “griess pudding” (semolina-based, kind of like cream-of-wheat pudding), a couple fruit yogurts, hazelnut/vanilla/chocolate pudding, plus more that I didn’t write down!

 

In the second example they changed from long & narrow tubs to bowls, and offered plain yogurt with fruit, griess pudding again, strawberry pudding, caramel pudding, and cherry quark.  Notice a trend here?  Lots of sauce on entrees, liquid desserts… and I can tell you they are experts at filling those white bowls to the absolute top.

The cafeteria sometimes has slices of fruit cakes or torts, and I always jump on the “bienenstich” (literally, “bee sting”) when they make it.  I think this would be a hit in the U.S…. two layers of a light cake with honeyed almonds on top and a layer of vanilla custard/whipped cream in between (pic courtesy of Wikipedia).  Maybe Frau A can find a recipe…

In the summer things get even better, because they open a small Mövenpick ice cream stand!  The lesson, as always:  don’t schedule an important meeting after lunch.

Beverages

What to wash it down with?  No, there is no beer served.  However, they do have fresh fruit and vegetable smoothies made daily with cool names like Orient Express, Hawaii Cocktail, and Vitamin Power!  In addition to the requisite water/juice/soda, Germans will self mix a “spezi” which is Coke and Fanta, or buy the bottled equivalent from Coca-Cola called Mezzo Mix (Coke with Orange flavor).  Not to my taste but popular with the younger crowd.

            

If you want beer or the trendy Bionade (non-alcoholic drink brewed/fermented with the approach as beer), you have to go to the coffee shop next door (off campus) or to the small 7-11 style store on site.  There are two coffee bars on campus offering Segafredo espresso drinks that are incredibly crowded between 12 and 1, and a great place to have an informal afternoon meeting if you have a small group.

Look for more German food posts coming up.  Frau A loves schnitzel and that deserves a thread, plus the amazing diversity of German breads.  Until then, if you’re ever in Munich, let me know – stop by and you can experience my corporate cafeteria for yourself.  Guten appétit.