Dr. Oetker - German Baking Today The Original

Foreword

German Baking Today, the standard baking book for every household, is ideal for both beginners and experienced cooks.

Having been extensively revised, this new edition now includes many new recipes, as well as the more classic cakes and pastries.

In addition to popular, well-known recipes such as apple strudel, marble cake, Black Forest gteau and Berliners, there are new recipes for muffins with chocolate chips, Maulwurftorte ("mole cake"), buttermilk slices with cherries and Mohnstriezel.

All the recipes have been thoroughly tested and baked in Dr. Oetkers test kitchen.

We wish you every success with your baking and hope you will enjoy the cakes, torte, pastries and biscuits as well as the bread and bread rolls. Bon apptit!

Contents

Recipes 1-24

Recipes 25-56

Recipes 57-52

Recipes 53-70

Recipes 71-84

Recipes 85-91

Recipes 92-94

Recipes 95-98

Recipes 99-106

Recipes 107-110

Recipes 111-115

Recipes 116-131

Recipes 132-140

General information about this book

Read through the recipe carefully before you start cooking, or even better before buying the ingredients. The various stages of the recipe and the method will often appear much clearer if you have read it through first.

Please look at the indications of quantities and spoon measurements on the inside covers of the book because they will be very useful when following a recipe.

Preparation time:
Preparation time refers to the time it takes to carry out the actual work. The preparation time does not include cooling down, marinating or soaking and waiting times during which no other activity takes place. Baking time is indicated separately. The preparation time is an approximate indication.

Baking time and baking temperature:
The baking temperatures and baking times indicated in the recipes are approximate values which can be reduced or increased depending on the individual heating performance of the oven. Be careful to follow the manufacturers instructions when using the oven and check whether it is done towards the end of the baking time indicated in the recipe.

Nutritional values:
The nutritional values indicated in the recipes are only valid for the amounts indicated. But they are not sufficient in the context of a diet plan.

Advice:
At the beginning of each section you will find a general guide including general information on the type of baking covered in the section, helpful tips, detailed descriptions of how to make dough as well as a basic recipe. In addition, you will also find a general guide at the end of the book dealing with subjects such as baking ingredients, flour, fats, mixers and blenders, ovens and baking temperatures, baking tins and utensils, garnishing and decorating, baking tips, problems, gelatine and technical terms.

Cake mixture

Cake mixture is made with fat, sugar, eggs, plain (all-purpose) flour and baking powder. The ingredients are added in that order. Cake mixture has a light, crumbly texture which can be endlessly varied by the addition of ingredients such as flavourings, cocoa powder, starches, pieces of chocolate, raisins and so on.

Preheating the oven
Preheat the oven at the top and bottom. Even fan or gas ovens must be preheated if the baking time is 30 minutes or less. If the baking time exceeds 30 minutes, fan and gas ovens do not need to be preheated.

Preparing the baking tin
Coat the baking tin generously and evenly with soft margarine or butter using a brush. Do not use oil because this would run down the edge of the tin.
If using a springform tin, grease only the bottom so that the pastry stays close to the side of the tin and does not slide down. To make it easier to remove cake from a rectangular tin or fluted mould, sprinkle some flour, breadcrumbs, ground hazelnuts or ground almonds over the tin after greasing it and distribute them around it by shaking and tapping it.
Alternatively, grease a rectangular tin and line it with baking parchment. This will make it easier to remove the cake from the tin.
Prepare the baking parchment as follows. Draw round the bottom of the tin on the baking parchment, then tip the tin up on each side in turn, drawing the shape of the sides. Cut out the corners and fold along the lines outlining the bottom of the tin.

Use softened margarine or butter
It is important to use softened margarine or butter that is neither runny nor too firm. Runny butter or margarine will not make a smooth dough, but if too hard it must be softened first. This is why it is important to take the butter or margarine out of the refrigerator in good time.
Use a hand mixer with whisk set to the highest setting spreadable butter or margarine even softer.

Adding the sugar
Mix together the sugar and vanilla sugar (or 23 drops natural vanilla essence in 12 tablespoons sugar) and add little by little to the softened butter or margarine. Stir until it forms a smooth, homogenous mixture. Caster sugar is preferable to granulated sugar because it dissolves more easily. If using honey, add it a little at a time as well.

Adding the flavouring
When adding liquid essences, let the drops run along the tooth of a fork, because this will make it easier to measure out the required amount.

Adding the eggs
Crack each egg into a cup in order to check its freshness. Do not add all the eggs to the butter or margarine and sugar mixture at the same time because this makes it difficult to obtain a smooth mixture. Add each egg separately with the mixer on the highest setting and work in for minute before adding the next one. If the eggs are too cold they may cause the butter or margarine to curdle and make the pastry gritty. However, this should not affect the successful outcome of the pastry.

Mixing and sifting the plain (all-purpose) flour and baking powder
If cornflour (cornstarch) or cocoa powder are among the ingredients, they should be mixed with the flour (with some exceptions, such as marble cake). Sifting the flour will aerate it and distribute the baking powder (and/or cornflour or cocoa powder) evenly in the flour. This will make the pastry lighter.
Wholemeal flour and baking powder should only be mixed, not sifted together, because the coarser texture of the wholemeal flour makes sifting impossible.

Stirring the flour at the medium setting
Stir the liquid (usually milk) into the flour in two stages, with the mixer at the medium setting. Add only enough liquid so that the dough to drops off the spoon with difficulty. This means that the dough has the right consistency. If too much liquid is added, the cake or pastry will be left with streaks of sodden dough. Also, if the dough is too soft, heavier ingredients such as raisins will sink to the bottom. However, this does not apply to cake mixtures that contain a lot of fat and eggs and little or no liquid. These can be softer because the raw eggs will set when heated during the baking process.
Baking powder should not come into direct contact with liquid because this would activate its rising properties prematurely.
As soon as the milk has been added to the flour, stir it only briefly; otherwise the pastry or cake may have an irregular texture (i.e. air holes).

Depending on the recipe, add the fruit to the cake mixture last
Drain the tinned fruit thoroughly and, if necessary, place on kitchen paper to remove as much moisture as possible in order to prevent the dough or cake mixture from becoming too wet. Stir the fruit or other solid ingredients into the mixture using a dough scraper or mixer at the medium setting. If the mixture is stirred for too long at this stage, the fruit will be damaged and turn the mixture an unsightly colour. Cherries and other fruit can be prevented from sinking to the bottom by coating them lightly in plain (all-purpose) flour before stirring them into the mixture.