bake like a german

My mum recently had a clear out, she seems to have these periodically, moving furniture and throwing out old stuff. In fact it seems to run in the family - all three Charpentier girls seem to love 'moving rooms' a regular change around of furniture and stuff. Rarely does a week go by when one of us isn't bringing a bag of clothes we've gotten bored of to the other's house to 'process'. All I can say is I feel sorry for our husbands and boyfriends :) My husband regularly comes home from work to find the sitting room and dining room have been swapped around and all our furniture has been donated to charity because I've decided we need a more minimalist life :)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, my mum and her clear out. So, this time it was books. Most of our childhood books, mainly the German ones, and then these beauties: My great-grandmothers and my mum's first husband's mother's (whose surname and title I inherited) recipe books. One Northern German, the other Alsace-French german. The writing so beautifully spidery and scrawled I can barely read it, in the old gothic style that predates the first world war. One in French, the other German. The french grand-mere even left her cigarette on her book once, and it's burned a hauntingly emotive hole in the front. Which recipe was she cooking when she smoked that cigarette? What was her kitchen like? Why did she get distracted? Did she burn the cake at the same time? And what swear words did she use when she noticed the smell of burning leather, did she swear at all or did she shrug it off with a gallic 'pa'? This was the lady who had a recipe for homemade cherry brandy no less, so it might be connected.

These two recipe books, both at least a hundred years old (My German great-grandmother wrote the date and place she started hers: 17th October, 1907, Bonn) are the most precious material thing I own now. They supersede even the very beautiful gold edged crockery and the fob watch my grandfather owned. They include recipes for grand meals, simple loaves, salads, cakes, puddings, soups and sauces, and the French one has a whole section on spirits - a recipe for Chartreuse no less, next to recipe for chocolate mousse. How I would have loved to have been there for that day!
This glimpse into what they cooked, what they ate, is beyond romantic to me. I have decided that before these two books fall apart completely I need to at least make an attempt to transcribe them, and make some of the things in them.

The biggest section, the part where they have scribbled on every single available page, is the baking sections, in both books. Hardly surprising that Germany is famous for its baking really. Not just its bread, its rye and its pumpernickel, but also its kaffee und kuchen, the apple cakes and the black forest gateaus, the sacher torte and the stollen. So many incredible cakes. So that's the section I'm going to start with. Bear with me while I spend the next few millennia trying out these ancient recipes. I'm hoping they give us some hints we have forgotten, and are interesting to you, my single lonely reader, whoever you are... (If you're reading this and enjoying it, or not, do let me know, I'd love some feedback! Thanks!)

The first recipe that grabs me, and one of the simplest, is one for a redcurrant cheesecake and meringue type torte. lots of layers, and ingredients, but relatively simple. I've adapted the ingredients slightly. see next post :)