Weihnachten 2011

Christmas Tree with lighted candles

The candles on the Christmas tree were lit last night in accordance with the Christmas Eve tradition in this part of the world. We did make a small compromise to tradition this year. While Magda's family tradition holds that the tree is not even put up until Christmas Eve, this year we put the tree up 5 days before. But it was not decorated until Christmas Eve. That was done just to eliminate the need to go out on the streets on the last shopping day before Christmas.

Homemade presents for 2011

Homemade Liqueur

 We did make some homemade gifts for friends and family this year. Three types of liqueur were bottled. These were made from red vineyard peaches, black currants and pears. We were particularly happy with the pear liqueur, probably because were did not have high expectations. But it turned out with a very nice pear flavor.

As mentioned in the previous blog, we made Christstollen according to the recipe out of the 1939 cookbook. But that was not the only baking we did. We put together packages containing 8 types  of cookies. These included Tollhouse cookies because, as every knows, they are Santa's favorite (although they are not seen here in Germany much).

Tollhouse

Snickerdoodles

I also did Snickerdoodles this year as another example of a traditional American cookie. Yes, I know that the Wikipedia page for Snickerdoodles claim a German origin for these cookies, but I don't buy it. I have never seen Snickerdoodles in a German cookbook, nor are they easy to find on Germany cooking web sites. When I have found something call Snickdoodles, they are quite different, containing walnuts and raisins, than the simple sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon and sugar that is typical in the USA.

Magda is a big fan of shortbread, so those had to be included. And what would Christmas be without some cut out butter cookies?.

Add the these some traditional German cookies. Lebkuchen almost defines this time of year in Germany. The ones we made are, like our stollen, based of a recipe from a 1939 Dr. Oetker cookbook. Honigkuchen uses the same spices as Lebkuchen, but uses honey as the sweetener and does not use much ground almonds. Heidesand is a personal favorite. It is a butter cookie with a little marzipan mixed in. They are formed by rolling the dough into a log, covering the outside of the log with sugar and slicing off the cookies. And Schmaltznüsse are a shortbread cookie where half the butter is replaced by lard. In this case, coca powder was added to half the recipe to create the "black and white" Schmalrznüsse.

Frohe Weihnachten!

Butter cookies and Shortbread

Homigküchen

Heidesand

Lebküchen

Black and White Schmalzmüsse

Making Christstollen, a November Tradition

Despite the increasing number and size of the Christmas displays that have been appearing in stores since the beginning of September, I have managed to avoid thinking too much about the coming Christmas season. However, Mid-November is time to start thinking about Christmas baking. While Stollen, the German sweetened bread with nuts, raisins and citron that is very popular at Christmas, can be eaten fresh, it actually is better when stored for a few weeks. The general rule of thumb is to bake Stollen at least 4-6 weeks before it is to be served. So now is the right time to start baking it.

I use a recipe that I have adapted from the Dr. Oetker's Schulkochbuch (School Cookbook) from 1939. Dr. Oetker is sort of the Betty Crocker of Germany. Maybe even bigger in Germany than Betty Crocker is in America since in addition to a historic line of cookbooks, the company also sells cooking ingredients. This year, the Schulkochbuch is celebrating 100 years of publication with its 10th edition. Each edition is a bit different, reflecting the tastes of its time. I like using the 1939 edition (the 3rd edition) because the amounts of sugar and fat used in its recipes are much less than a recipe from current cookbooks. I suspect this is because these ingredients were much more expensive at that time.

The recipe is called "Simple Christstollen". I'll first give the recipe from the book (not a literal translation) and then provide additional insights to the recipe as well as some of the variations that I've used.

Simple Christsrollen

100g Schmaltz

100g Butter

125g Sugar

1 Egg

1/2 container of Dr. Oetker's Lemon Backoil (Backoil is explained below)

500g Flour

1 package Dr. Oetker's Backin

1/4 cup Milk at room temperature

125g Raisins

50g Currants

50g Citron

50g chopped Almonds or Walnuts

• In one bowl, mix the fat, sugar, egg and backoil until creamy.
• In another bowl, mix the flour and the backin.
• To the fat/sugar mixture mix in 3/4 of the flour mixture and the milk to form a wet dough.
• Knead in the raisins, currants, citron, nuts and remaining flour until the dough accepts the remaining flour.
• Form a stollen and place on a flour covered baking sheet.
• Optionally after baking, drizzle with a little additional butter and sprinkle with powder sugar.
• Backing time: 1-1.5 hours in middle hot oven.

Schmaltz is rendered pork fat. It is cheaper than butter and doesn't have a distinct taste. So mixing with butter is quite frugal. Using all butter is fine, as would using margarine.

Backoil is flavoring that is used in baking in Germany. Personally, I find it artificial tasting, especially the lemon and orange flavors. So I prefer using the zest of one lemon.

Backin is German baking powder. It is sold in packages containing 5 teaspoons. This is different than the American baking powder and should not be substituted for each other. Some specialty grocery stores will have packets of Dr. Oetker's Backin (the Andersons in Columbus carries them, or you can find it on Amazon). If not, a reasonable substitute is a 2 to 1 mixture of cream of tartar and backing soda.

A lot of people prefer yeast as the rising agent (Magda is one of these). I've used both fresh and dried yeast in place of the backin quite often in this recipe, but doing so means giving the yeast some time to work. I give the yeast a good start by mixing it with the warm (but not hot) milk, and a little bit of the sugar and flour from the recipe about an hour before getting started. This mixture is added with the 3/4 of the flour mixture to form the initial dough. Once fruit and remaining flour is kneaded together, I leave the ball of dough to rise in a bowl covered with a towel for about 2 hours. Then after forming the Stollen, I cover them with a towel and let rise for an additional hour before baking.

Most any dried fruit can be used in place or in addition to the raisins and currants.For example, I've used dried cranberries several times. I do like to soften the fruit a little by soaking in a liquid for a couple of hours. Rum or orange liqueur would be traditional liquids. Orange juice would also be OK, if staying away from alcohol is important. 

Forming a stollen simply means rolling the dough in to a thick oval, the length of the loaf that you want, and lengthwise folding one side of the oval over the other. Let the bottom part hang out a little bit, you don't quite want the top part to cover it completely.

The recipe makes a 1 kg (a little over 2 lbs) Stollen, which is a pretty good size loaf. 2 half kilogram (1 lb) Stollen may make more sense if you are planning to serve groups of 3 to 5. In the pictures below, I made 4 small Stollen that would be just right as a gift to a single person or a couple.

For a number of reasons, bake temperature and time are always a problem when using old recipes. The idea is to bake until the Stollen are golden brown. I use the over and under heat setting on our oven. What I do is pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C, and then turn the oven down to 175 C when I put the Stollen in. Bake time for the 1 kg Stollen is 40 to 45 minutes. If you make 2 or 4 smaller Stollen, the bake time will be a little less. Obviously, if you use convection, you should reduce temperatures.

Dresden 2011

Our friend, Mark, visited for a week in October. Mark had visited Koblenz in the past and so wanted to see some other part of Germany while he was here. The facts that had seen some pictures of Dresden while watching the Women's World Cup games that took place in the "Florence on the Elbe" and that Dresden is the sister city of Columbus, Ohio, our hometown, made Dresden a logical choice for a visit.

Dresden is almost exactly a 5 hour drive from Koblenz. With Mark arriving on a Monday, returning the following Sunday, spending a day at BUGA, and another day on a hike around Koblenz, that left 3 days to drive to Dresden and see the city.

On a rainy Wednesday mourning, we got into the car and started off to Dresden. Driving east from Koblenz in not the easiest thing. The autobahn system is much more geared to North-South traffic. There is a good autobahn traveling southeast to Limburg. East from there are a combination of  an two lane highways and limited access highways (autobahn "want-a-be"s) that seem to be under continual construction but that does take the traveler through the farmlands of Hessen and the "dead zone" around the former border to the DDR. Then a few kilometers before the former border, the highway becomes a wonderful new autobahn. So new that for a large part of the remainder of our journey, our two year old GPS showed us racing across the green fields of Thuringen at 130 km/hr while it kept trying to correct our route to some abandoned road to the south.'

Dresden's Frauenkirche

We arrived in Dresden in the early afternoon and found our hotel, a newly opened ETAP conveniently located near at the Altmarkt. ETAP is one of the budget chains that is a part of the Accor hotel group. They have opened a number of new ETAP hotels in  major cities across Europe. While these new ETAPs have the ambiance of a youth hostel, they are inexpensive, clean and located near the tourist attractions. Obviously if  you feel that a part of traveling is enjoying drinks at the hotel bar or relaxing in a plush hotel room, ETAP is not for you. The Dresden ETAP had been opened just two months, was clean, had helpful staff, was in walking distance of the major attractions and was quite cheap. While it suited us just fine, I have to agree with the review I read that suggested that the room designs are such that you would only consider sharing a room with people that you are very close to.

After checking in, we took off, map in hand, to get our bearings and to visit at least one museum. The majority of the Baroque reconstructions in Dresden are centrally located in the Altstadt along the Elbe. The reconstruction of the buildings destroyed during the Feburary 1945 bombings started during the DDR time and continues today. Reconstruction of the 18th century Frauenkirche, a symbol of Dresden, took 13 years and was completed in 2005, one year before the 800th anniversary of the city founding.

A large part of Dresden's Altstadt (Old City) is pedestrian only, so it is great for strolling. As I mentioned, the areas is fairly compact, but big enough to have a lot of interesting buildings packed into them. Included in this area are the Frauenkirche, the Opera, the Hofkirche, the Fürstenzug, the palaces containing the major museums, and the river front.  The fact that there is a similarity in the architecture style and construction materials, seems to make it seem like there is more. There are open areas with interesting sight lines, and small streets. There are unexpected and elaborate fountains. The river front is dramatic. There is a thriving restaurant and bistro scene with tables spilling on to the streets and filled with people, even on a cold day. Or if warmth is desired, you can sit behind the large glass windows enjoying your favorite drink and a bit of people watching. The only negative thing about the restaurants in Altstadt is that a number of them seem to be parts of larger restaurant groups as a lot of the names are recognizable if you spent any time in Munich or Berlin.

Most of the Baroque buildings in Altstadt have been built with the same stone. That may not be obvious at first as a number of the buildings are black, while the the newer ones are a light brown. Our first thought is that some of these builds just need a good cleaning, but that is not the case. Rather the stone contains iron that oxidizes when exposed to the air. Over time, all the building will take on this blackness.

After strolling around the Altstadt, it is possible to continue across the Augustus Bridge to Neustadt (New City). The "new" here is relative. This part of Dresden dates back to 1732. There is still a neighborhood of Baroque builds that survived the bombings, although it is necessary to pass though a block of post WWII soviet style buildings to get there. There are a number of small antique shops (most selling Meissen) and other small shops that are interesting to visit. Also a number of restaurants that seem locally owned and are a bit less expensive than in Altstadt.

For centuries, Dresden has been a cultural and artistic center. Through its Brücke artists, Dresden was a very important city in the development of expressionism. For this reason, our first museum we headed for was the Galerie Neue Meister (the Galley of New Masters). Unfortunately, the expressionist collection was not as large as we had hoped. In retrospect this may have been more a problem with our expectation. Expressionism was after all considered "decadent art" during the Hitler years, and likely had little following in the post-WWII authoritarian government. There was a handful of paintings from the Brücke artists, and a number of seldom seen impressionist and post-impressionist to make the trip worthwhile.

Probably the most interesting collection at the Galerie Neue Meister was a special exhibition called the Neue Sachlichkeit (the New Objectivity). During the 1920s, Dresden, Hanover and Karlsruhe became centers for this new artistic style that attempted to depict the emotional reality of the post-WWI life around them. The pictures were of unemployed people, war invalids, as well as working women and children. Some were hard  to look at, others beautiful in their elegant depictions. All showed the wide-spread depression of life in Germany at this time, the Germany that gave birth to Hitler.

The surprising highlight of the visit was the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery). In honor of the 500th anniversary of Dresden's most famous painting, Raphael's Sistine Modonna. Well you might not be familiar with the painting, I'm guessing that most people have seen a part of it. That is the two angels at the bottom might be the most famous two angels ever painted. In honor the this anniversary and the pope's visit to Germany this year, the museum had a special exhibition of Madonnas from a number of famous painters. Included here was another Madonna that Raphael painted at the same time. Since this second Madonna is owned by and has never left the Vatican, this was the first time the two painting have appeared together since they were in Raphael's workshop 500 years ago. 

The Gallery also a wonderful collection of Dutch School paintings that include a number of impressive Rembrandts and delightful Vermeer (Girl reading a Letter at an Open Window). 

Visiting Friends in Normandy

As the son of a history teacher who grew up in the shadow of WWII, when we decided to accept the invitation from a couple of friends to visit them in Normandy, there was little choice about one part of our literary. We did visit Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery near by. It was an emotional experience, but only one of many highlights from our trip.

Two of our neighbors in Columbus were working in France. Jim is a medievalist and Ann is an expert in Gothic art, both former professors of art at the Ohio State University. Jim has spend part of the last 20 years studying the Abbey at Jumièges. So when we got an invitation to visit them and perhaps see a bit of Gothic France through the eyes of these experts, we jumped at the chance.

Tympanum of the central west portal
Amiens Catheral

On the way to Jumièges, we stopped in Amiens to see the Notre Dame Cathedral there. This cathedral, started in the 13th century, has the highest ceiling  of all completed cathedrals in France, and also largest interior volume. The exterior of the cathedral is famous for the quality of the sculpture on the north and west entries, and for the tall central spire. The interior is surprisingly light, with large nave and chancel. The ambulatory around the choir provides access to a number of richly decorated chapels. The floor of the nave features a large labyrinth (walking the labyrinth was equivalent to a pilgrimage to Jerusalem) and swastikas that in the 13th century symbolized the triumph over death by Jesus.

Jumièges is a small town on the Seine. It one major tourist attraction is the ruins of the Benedictine Monastery that was founded in 654 AD. The monastery operated up until the French Revolution (which was as much a revolution against the church as against the monarchy). At the time of the Revolution, it was one of the largest monastery complexes in France, containing two churches, cloister, library, walls, and a number of other buildings made from the white limestone quarried in the area. But after the revolution, it was closed and sold off. The owner used the complex as a quarry, tearing down the buildings and selling off the stones. What is left is impressive and beautiful, but gives only a hint at the former glory, as the slide show below indicates.



On the second day, we made it to Omaha Beach, but not before stopping off in Bayeaux to see the famous tapestry from the 1070s that illustrates the story of William's conquest of England. It is wonderfully displayed    behind glass, but at eye level. The audio guide that is provided as a part of the admission fee explains the illustrations as you walk along the 70 meter tapestry. Afterwards a short film tells a little more about the history of the tapestry.

Cliffs above Omaha Beach

Outwardly, Omaha Beach now appears for the most part to be just another a beach. But there are a few hint to the events of June 6. Most visibly are the two memorials on the beach dedicated to these events. Then is the museum that you pass just before arriving at the beach. And, of couse, there is the constant flow of tour buses, even on a an October day, bringing Americans, mostly my age or older it appears, on their pilgrimage to this hollowed ground in American history. Seeing the cliffs above the beach, you have to wonder how the US troops were able to over come such a disadvantage (and why such a spot would chosen to send these troops). The American Military Cemetery not far away is a reminder of the exactly what it did cost. It is a beautifully manicured cemetery overlooking the ocean and is deeply respectful of the sacrifice of these troops and a reminder for anyone that visits. I wanted to weep. It was only a couple of hours, but it was emotional.

The third day was spent in Rouen. Maybe it was that I didn't really have high expectations, but I as blown away by this city. It has a incredible wealth of 5-6 story, half-timbered medieval buildings. It just seemed like street after street, on both sides, we were fascinated by one building after another. Then there is the cathedral. You know the one that Monet painted in various lighting. The interior isn't much, but the exterior is pretty special. We were particularly intrigued by the reliefs and sculptures of the north portal. The following slide show contains pictures of some of these carvings that we found interesting.