Not only that: our verjus even played a supporting role in the rough puff pastry, which carries the pear and frangipane layers.

Rough Puff Pastry

I always was a bit scared of puff pastry — it’s surprisingly labor intensive and you have to be pretty exact. But since I started making pastéis de nata, I have been having a lot of fun with it. And since reading more about it in Nicola Lamb’s Sift, the whole whole subject has been illuminated for me. I have fallen especially in love with the rough puff pastry in that book. I changed it a little bit ( because of course I did) and replaced some of the flour with a bit of sugar — I like it better when there’s some inherent sweetness in the dough itself, not only in the sugar on the outside. And—surprise surprise— I replaced the vinegar with our verjus. This rough puff pastry is gorgeous and works for a lot of different applications.

Ingredients

• 95 g ice cold water

• 20 g verjus

• 165 g cold butter

• 160 g all-purpose flour

• 50 g bread flour

• 25 g sugar

• 1 pinch of salt

Method

1. Whisk the all-purpose flour, bread flour, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl. Chill the bowl in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes.

2. Cut the cold butter into roughly 1.5–2 cm cubes. Toss the cubes into the flour mixture to coat them, then turn on your stand mixer with the paddle attachment on low until you have uneven pieces of butter, some small, some larger. Don’t overmix.

3. Combine the ice water and verjus. Drizzle it over the flour-butter mixture a little at a time until the dough barely holds together into a shaggy, uneven mass. It should look rough and floury in places.

4. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and gently press/pat it into a rough rectangle. Don’t knead.

5. Roll it into a rectangle about three times as long as it is wide. Fold it into fourths — one turn down and one turn up (a book fold).

6. Wrap and chill 20 minutes. This keeps the butter firm and lets the gluten relax so it doesn’t fight you on the next roll.

7. Before rolling again, turn the dough 90° from its previous orientation — this ensures the layers laminate evenly in both directions instead of only lengthwise. Roll out and book-fold again, then wrap and chill 20 minutes. Repeat this roll–fold–turn–chill sequence 4–6 times total, always giving the dough a 90° turn before each roll. You’ll start to see visible butter streaks — that’s the lamination working.

8. After the final turn, wrap tightly and chill at least 1 hour (or overnight) before use.

Frangipane

Ingredients

• 85 g butter

• 85 g sugar

• 1 whole egg

• 85 g almond flour

• 20 g all-purpose flour

• 1 g flaky sea salt

• 1 g almond extract (if using)

Method

1. Have the butter at true room temperature — soft enough to leave an indent when pressed, not melted or greasy. Cold butter won’t cream properly; melted butter will make the frangipane oily instead of light.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together (paddle attachment or hand mixer, medium speed) for about 2–3 minutes, until noticeably paler and fluffy.

3. Add the egg (mixed with the almond extract, if using) and beat until fully incorporated, scraping down the bowl.

4. Add the almond flour, all-purpose flour, and salt, and mix on low speed just until combined and smooth. Stop as soon as it’s uniform — overmixing at this stage can beat in excess air, which causes the frangipane to dome and crack as it bakes instead of staying flat and even.

5. You should end up with a smooth, light, spreadable paste. Use it right away, or transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate (up to 3–4 days) or freeze. If chilled, let it sit out until just spreadable before using — cold frangipane tears delicate pastry when you try to spread it.

Poached Pears

Ingredients

• 6 Bartlett pears

• 250 g verjus

• 250 g water

• 150 g sugar

Method

1. Peel the pears, then core and quarter them.

2. Poach at a low simmer for about 20–30 minutes, depending on your pears.

3. Take them out of the liquid and let them cool.

4. Reduce the poaching liquid until it becomes a glaze.

Assembly

Ingredients

• Rough puff pastry (above)

• Frangipane (above)

• Poached pear quarters and verjus glaze (above)

• Sugar, for sprinkling

• Egg wash (optional): 1 egg beaten with a splash of water, for brushing the border

Method

1. When ready to bake, roll the dough to about 3–5 mm thickness on a piece of baking paper. Once you have a rectangle of the size you want, mark a 4 cm (1.5 inch) border.

2. Spread the frangipane inside the marked rectangle. Be careful — you don’t want to tear the delicate dough, so it’s important that the frangipane is at a spreadable temperature.

3. Slide the baking paper with the dough and frangipane onto a baking sheet and chill in the fridge for another 20 minutes.

4. In the meantime, slice your pears and heat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

5. When you’re ready, spread the sliced pears on top of the frangipane.

6. Fold over the border you left and sprinkle the whole galette with sugar. You can also brush the border with an egg wash before sprinkling it with sugar — it makes it prettier. (I forgot to do that this time around.)

7. Bake until golden brown. Once baked, I brushed the pears with the verjus-sugar glaze.

Sadly, even in Germany, brezel quality has been declining. Most commercial bakery chains buy premade, frozen, unbaked pretzels from big factories and just bake them off in-store. When you’re in southern Germany, seek out an old-school or new-wave artisan bakery that makes its brezeln in house, and skip the commercial stuff.

The regions differ distinctly: Bavarians like the arms thick and soft, with a belly that rips open naturally in the oven. Badeners prefer a clean scored cut in the belly that opens neatly as it bakes. Swabians like the arms thin and crispy with a puffy belly — my favorite of the three. I love that contrast between crispy arms and soft belly.

In my book, the only way to eat a brezel is with excellent european butter. Some parts of Bavaria pair them with obatzda (a cheese spread) or weisswurst; I like mine best with just butter. What absoultely does not belong on a brezel: mustard.

This is the recipe I use. Bavarian bakers tend to use even less fat, which makes their brezeln crispier.

If you want to hear a bit about the brezel’s illustrious story check today’s Instagram.

Recipe: Swabian Laugenbrezel

Pre-ferment

• 500 g wheat flour (type 550)

• 235 g water

• 5 g dry yeast (Trockenhefe)

Dissolve the yeast in the water, then stir in the flour — do not knead. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour, then refrigerate for at least 18 hours.

Main dough

• All of the pre-ferment

• 500 g wheat flour (type 550)

• 235 g cold water

• 10 g dry yeast (Trockenhefe)

• 22 g salt

• 70 g cold butter, cut into small pieces or if you want to be totally authentic use lard

• 50 g diastatic malt powder

Combine the pre-ferment with the flour, water, yeast, salt, and malt powder (hold back the butter). Knead about 5 minutes on low speed, then 7–10 minutes on high speed, until the dough is firm but supple. Make sure the water is very cold, you don’t want the dough to get warm. With the mixer still running on high, add the cold butter a little at a time and keep kneading until fully incorporated and the gluten is well developed.

Cover and let the dough rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Divide into pieces of around 90-100 grams, make round into balls cover and let relax for 10 minutes.

Shaping

Roll each ball into a strand about 60–70 cm long, thick in the center, tapering to thin “arms,” with slightly thicker ends. Twist into the classic pretzel shape. Arrange the shaped pretzels on baking paper, cover loosely with a cloth (no plastic wrap) let rise for 30 minutes at room temp and then refrigerate for 8–10 hours at 6–8°C. This chill lets a light skin form on the surface, which is what allows a clean lye dip the next morning. It is really important to not fully proof the brezels, 30 minutes is just fine.

The lye bath and bake

Safety first: sodium hydroxide solution is highly caustic. Wear goggles and rubber gloves, protect wood and aluminum surfaces from any splashes. Buy lye as a concentrate or as NaOH pellets, and when diluting to 3–4%, always add the lye to the water — never the reverse — since the reaction is strongly exothermic and gets very hot. Leftover diluted lye can be stored in a glass or plastic container and reused. That means 30-40 g of lye to 1000 ML of water.

1. Using a slotted spoon, dip each pretzel in the lye solution for 10-15 seconds, let it drip briefly, then set it on baking paper.

2. Score the belly of each pretzel with a sharp blade, about 1 cm deep (keep your gloves on for this step).

3. Bake in a 420°F - 450°F oven, no steam (convection/fan works well, even across two racks).

4. After 10 minutes, crack the oven door briefly to let the moisture escape — this is what gives the lye crust its crisp finish.

5. Bake a total of 17–20 minutes, until deep golden brown, spray lightly with water for extra shine, then cool on a wire rack.

Serve with good european butter. Skip the mustard.

If you make a trip to Germany seek out the following bakers:

Swabia:

Bäckerei Sailer (Bad Cannstatt)

Bäckerei Dreßler (Stuttgart-West)

Bäckerei Weible (Heusteigviertel) .

Bäckerei Peter Sauter (Baienfurt/Ravensburg)

A Bit of History

Like many culinary feats, the pastel de nata was created by monks — specifically, the monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém, Lisbon. Convents and monasteries of the era used large quantities of egg whites to starch nuns’ habits and clergy garments, which left them with a surplus of egg yolks. Nothing went to waste, so the yolks were turned into rich pastries and cakes — one of which became the custard tart we know today.

The turning point came with Portugal’s Liberal Revolution in the 1820s and the subsequent 1834 decree that dissolved religious orders across the country. Facing closure and financial ruin, the monks at Jerónimos began selling their pastries to raise money, and eventually sold the recipe to a nearby sugar refinery in the Belém district.

In 1837, the refinery’s owners opened the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém, a bakery that still operates today, a short walk from the monastery. It holds the original secret recipe, known only to a handful of pastry chefs, and its tarts are legally the only ones allowed to be called “Pastéis de Belém” — everywhere else in Portugal and the world, the same style of tart goes by the generic name pastel de nata (”cream pastry”).

Today they’re a staple of Portuguese identity, and here is my attempt at making them at home, as part of our series Coffee and Cake: Pastry Around the World. You NEED to make this puff pastry dough yourself. Don’t buy it in the supermarket. This is a special laminating technique that creates circular layers that are quintessential Pastel de Nata.

Puff Pastry Dough

Ingredients

• 290 g all-purpose flour

• 1 pinch of salt

• 210 ml water

• 240 g unsalted butter, softened

Method

1. Mix the flour, salt, and water together with the dough hook of your stand mixer for 2–3 minutes, until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This dough is very sticky.

2. Clear a good work surface and have plenty of flour on hand. Using a dough scraper, turn the dough out of the bowl onto the surface and push it, with the help of the scraper, roughly into a square. Sprinkle with plenty of flour, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest for 15–20 minutes.

3. Roll the dough out, using plenty of flour, into a 16 x 16-inch square.

4. Laminate the dough: Brush the excess flour off the surface and spread a third of the soft butter gently over two-thirds of the dough, leaving about an inch bare on the sides. Fold the unbuttered third on top of the middle third. Use the pastry scraper and plenty of flour to loosen the dough from the surface if it’s sticking, then fold over the last third.

5. Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll it out again into a 16 x 16-inch square. Repeat the lamination process (spread another third of the butter, fold in thirds).

6. Turn the dough 90 degrees once more. This time, roll it out into an 18 x 21-inch rectangle, with the 18-inch side facing you. Trim the edges so you have a clean, solid rectangle.

7. Spread the final third of the butter over the whole dough. Using the pastry scraper, loosen the dough from the surface, then carefully roll it up into a log. Trim the ends, then cut the log in half — each half will make about 12 pastries, depending if you use the originals tins or mini muffin forms.

8. Wrap both rolls in plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours, ideally overnight.

The Custard

Ingredients

• 40 g pastry flour

• 65 ml cold whole milk

• 235 ml whole milk

• 165 ml water

• 240 g sugar

• Vanilla bean or cinnamon stick

• 6 egg yolks

Method

1. Whisk the 65 ml cold milk with the pastry flour in a small bowl and set aside.

2. In a small pot, combine the water and sugar. Add a cinnamon stick or vanilla bean if using. Heat over low heat, using a thermometer, until it reaches 100°C.

3. In another small pot, bring the remaining 235 ml of milk to a boil. Once boiling, pour it over the flour-milk mixture and stir.

4. Pour the hot sugar syrup into the flour mixture in a thin, even stream, whisking continuously.

5. Continue whisking until the mixture has cooled down substantially, then whisk in the egg yolks.

6. Pour the custard through a strainer and refrigerate.

Assembly and Baking

1. Take the pastry log out of the fridge, unwrap, and cut into 1-inch slices.

2. Lightly grease your muffin tins and place a slice in each. The dough will be very cold — let it rest at room temperature in the tin for about 10 minutes, until the butter softens.

3. Press the dough down with wet thumbs, starting in the middle, then pull it up the sides with wet fingers to form a case.

4. Fill the puff pastry cases three-quarters full with the custard.

5. Make sure you preheated your oven for at least 30 minutes at its highest temperature — the hotter the oven, the better the characteristic black blisters.

6. Bake for 10–15 minutes, depending on whether you used standard muffin tins or mini muffin forms.

7. Let cool for 10 minutes, then dust with powdered sugar and cinnamon, if desired.

This weekend’s strawberries were so spectacularly flavorful that I decided on a strawberry cake. I made the recipe up as I went along, and it turned out so tasty that I have to share it here. The idea was a sturdy almond sponge — one strong enough to carry all the fruit and filling I had in mind.

At a Glance

Pan: 9-inch (23 cm) springform Oven: 350°F (175°C) Bake: 30–35 min Strawberries: 1,000 g total

The Almond Sponge

Ingredients

• 120 g pastry flour

• 30 g cornstarch

• 80 g almonds, roasted and finely ground

• 5 eggs, at room temperature

• 150 g sugar (divided: 100 g + 50 g)

• 1 pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper. Do not grease the sides — the batter needs to grip them as it rises.

2. Whisk together the pastry flour, cornstarch, and ground almonds in a bowl and set aside.

3. Separate the eggs, keeping the yolks and whites in two large bowls. Room-temperature eggs give you much fluffier whites.

4. Beat the yolks with 100 g of the sugar until pale, thick, and creamy, whisking plenty of air into the mixture.

5. In the second bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt. Once they start to turn creamy and white, gradually add the remaining 50 g of sugar and continue beating until you have a stiff, glossy meringue.

6. Fold about a third of the meringue into the yolk mixture to loosen it.

7. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, and almond mixture and fold gently to combine.

8. Fold in the remaining meringue in two additions. Be careful — you do not want to knock out the air bubbles you just created.

9. Pour the batter into the prepared springform and bake for 30–35 minutes, until golden and springy and a skewer comes out clean.

10. Turn the oven off and prop the door open a few inches — a wooden spoon or a folded towel in the gap works well. Let the cake cool down slowly in the oven; this helps prevent it from sinking.

Tip To roast the almonds, spread whole or slivered almonds on a tray and toast at 350°F (175°C) for 8–10 minutes until fragrant, then cool completely before grinding. Warm almonds turn oily in the grinder.

Strawberry Jam (for brushing & glazing)

Ingredients

• 250 g strawberries

• 150 g sugar

Method

1. Blend the strawberries with the sugar until smooth.

2. Bring to a boil and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

3. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

Quark Cream Filling

Ingredients

• 300 g quark

• 300 g heavy cream, whipped

• 50 g powdered sugar

• 250 g strawberries, chopped

Method

1. Whip the heavy cream to soft-to-firm peaks.

2. In a separate bowl, stir the quark together with the powdered sugar until smooth, then gently fold in the whipped cream.

3. Fold in the chopped strawberries. Keep the filling chilled until you assemble the cake..

Assembly

You will also need roughly 500 g or a bit more - be generous :) of fresh strawberries for slicing and topping (part of the 1,000 g total).

1. Once the sponge has cooled completely, run a knife around the inside of the springform ring to loosen it. Release the ring and peel the parchment off the bottom.

2. Cut the sponge horizontally into three even layers.

3. Brush the bottom layer with the cooled strawberry jam, then cover it with a layer of very thinly sliced strawberries.

4. Brush the underside of the middle layer with jam, flip it jam-side down onto the sliced strawberries, and press gently.

5. Place a clean 9-inch cake ring (or the cleaned springform ring) around the cake to hold the filling in place.

6. Spread the quark cream / strawberry filling evenly over the middle layer.

7. Set the top layer in place and brush it with a thin layer of jam.

8. Arrange a ring of thinly sliced strawberries around the perimeter of the top, then pile a heap of quartered strawberries in the center.

9. Glaze the berries to make them glossy and to keep them fresh. Use a cake glaze such as Dr. Oetker Tortenguss, or simply warm any leftover jam until runny and brush it carefully over the fruit. If the jam is a bit chunky, pass it through a strainer first.

10. Chill the finished cake for at least an hour (or two) before removing the ring and serving.

For the dough

• 190g all-purpose flour

• 20g sugar

• 140g cold, cubed butter

• 85g ice water

• Pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and mix with a couple of short bursts. You still want to see flecks of butter — they should not completely incorporated. Then bring it all together with your hands, without overworking it, into an even dough. Shape it into a flat disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

For the frangipane

• 60g almond flour or finely chopped almonds

• 60g sugar (I used toasted sugar)

• Pinch of salt

• 60g butter, at room temperature

• 1 small egg

• 10g flour

• 1 scraped vanilla bean

Beat the sugar and butter until well mixed, add the egg and then the dry ingredients. That’s it!

Assembly

Roll the dough out into a roughly twelve-inch circle. I roll it on a piece of baking paper — that way you can easily transfer it onto your baking sheet. Spread the frangipane over a ten-inch circle in the center, then add the peach slices. I used four peaches, cut into eighths, taste the peaches if they are only sweet and have no acidity, squeeze a little of lemon over them. Arrange them any way you like on the frangipane. Now fold the extra two inches of dough over the edge — there are many ways to do this; just go with whatever works for you.

Brush the folded-over dough with melted butter, and dust the fruit and border with sugar (I used my toasted sugar). Slide the baking paper with the galette onto the baking sheet and bake at 400°F (205°C) for 30–35 minutes. Once the galette has cooled down sprinkle some lavender flowers on top.

You will need quark, my favorite German fresh cheese. Since it is almost impossible to find in the US, there is a recipe on my Substack that guides you through making delicious, high-quality quark at home.

This recipe is for a 9-inch springform pan.

The Crust

For the crust, I made a simple 3-2-1 dough with toasted sugar (see instructions for toasted sugar in a previous recipe), but you can also make it with regular sugar.

• 180 g all-purpose flour

• 120 g butter

• 60 g toasted sugar

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• A pinch of salt

Put everything in the food processor. Once it is all mixed, bring the dough together with your hands. Form a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. Roll out and line the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Put the springform in the fridge while you work on the other elements.

Hazelnut-Sugar Dusting (for the crust bottom)

• 50 g toasted sugar

• 50 g toasted, ground hazelnuts

Toast 100 g hazelnuts in a pan — you will need the other half for the streusel. Keep them moving so they don’t burn. Transfer them to a container with a lid and shake vigorously until most of the skins fall off. Let them cool, then grind the hazelnuts in your food processor. Mix 50 g of the ground hazelnuts with the toasted sugar and dust evenly over the crust bottom before adding the filling.

The Streusel

• 50 g all-purpose flour

• 50 g hazelnut flour (from the toasted hazelnuts above)

• 50 g toasted sugar

• 50 g unsalted butter, room temperature

• Pinch of fleur de sel

Put everything in a bowl, bring the ingredients together, and refrigerate to rest.

The Cheesecake Filling

• 550 g quark

• 100 g heavy cream, whipped

• 110 g sugar, divided

• 75 g butter, softened

• 3 eggs, separated

• 50 g all-purpose flour

• 10 g cornstarch

• ½ teaspoon baking powder

• Juice of ½ lemon

• 1 vanilla bean, scraped

• 1 small pinch of salt

Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks with half of the sugar (55 g) until light yellow. Add the soft butter, then the quark, lemon juice and scraped vanilla bean pods; mix well. Sift in the dry ingredients: flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites, slowly adding the second half of the sugar (55 g), until stiff. In another bowl, whip the heavy cream. First fold the whipped cream into the quark mixture, then gently fold in the stiff egg whites.

Assembly and Baking

Take the springform out of the fridge and dust the crust bottom with the hazelnut-sugar mixture. Pour in the quark filling. Scatter about 200 g of red currants on top — I use frozen ones from Northwest Wild Foods since fresh ones are impossible to find here. Take the streusel dough out of the fridge, break it up into evenly sized crumbs, and cover the red currants.

Bake at 360°F (180°C) for at least 60 minutes; you might have to add 5–10 minutes if the cake seems too jiggly. Don’t be worried that the streusel gets dark — the hazelnuts and toasted sugar are doing their special magic. If you feel the top is getting too dark, just lay a sheet of baking paper on top during the last 15 minutes.

Cherries entered the human food chain in the Stone Age, but their first significant appearance in the West came thanks to the Roman general Lucullus, a man who had a serious weakness for everything tasty. Upon retiring from the military, Lucullus spent his fortune hosting extravagant gourmet banquets. His legendary lifestyle made his name synonymous with elite culinary indulgence.

I kept this recipe simple but added a layer of ground almonds and toasted sugar to the bottom of the crust. Since almonds and cherries are genetically closely related, the combination works beautifully — and it prevents the crust from getting soggy, especially if you use frozen cherries or cherries from a jar.

For the Crust and Streusel

• Flour: 300 g

• Butter: 200 g

• Toasted sugar: 100 g

• Lemon juice or Verjus: 1–2 tablespoons

Combine everything in a food processor, then bring the dough together with your hands. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour. Remove from the refrigerator and let it warm up for 10 minutes. Roll out into a 10-inch circle and press into a 9-inch tart pan or springform. Reserve about 30% of the dough for the streusel topping. If you are wondering about toasted sugar, there is a tutorial in my previous apricot tart recipe — do try it, it is wonderful.

For the Almond Layer

• 50 g ground almonds

• 50 g toasted sugar

Spread uniformly over the bottom dough.

The Fruit

• 600 g pitted cherries

• Juice of half a lemon

Squeeze the lemon juice over the cherries and toss to combine. Most fresh cherries (Bing and Rainier) run on the sweeter side, and the lemon juice provides essential balance.

Spread the fruit over the almond layer. Crumble the reserved dough over the top and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40–45 minutes. Best served with freshly whipped cream.

Ingredients

Makes one 9-inch cake. Split the batter between two 9-inch springform pans.

Sponge

• Butter: 230 g, softened

• Salt: 4 g

• Sugar: 280 g

• Heavy cream: 75 ml

• Eggs: 4 large eggs

• Egg yolks: 2 egg yolks

• Milk: 105 g

• Flour: 280 g

• Baking powder: 20 g

• Granulated sugar: 25 g (to top one of the batters before baking, this will be your top)

Strawberries

• Roasted Strawberries: 500 g

• Granulated sugar: 100 g (to roast)

• Fresh strawberries: 100 g thinly sliced

Cream Filling

• Heavy whipping cream: 480 ml

• Quark (or fromage blanc): 250 g

• Powdered sugar: 70 g

To Finish

• Powdered sugar, for dusting

Sponge

Beat the softened butter with the salt in a large bowl until light and fluffy. In a second bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients — flour and baking powder. In a third bowl, beat the eggs and yolks with the sugar until light and creamy, then add the cream and milk and stir to combine. Add the contents of the three bowls together in alternating additions: add some of the egg mixture to the butter, then some of the flour mixture, and continue until everything is well incorporated. Split the batter evenly between two buttered 9-inch springform pans. Dust one of the batters with the 25 g of sugar - this will be your top. Bake at 375°F for about 25 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Roasted Strawberries

Clean and hull 500 g of strawberries and slice them. Toss with 100 g of granulated sugar and spread in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast at 350°F / 175°C for 30–40 minutes, until the strawberries have darkened and released their juices. Transfer the roasted strawberries and all their syrup to a bowl and let cool.

Meanwhile, slice another 100 g of strawberries paper-thin and set aside

Cream Filling

Whip 480 ml of heavy whipping cream to stiff peaks. Add 70 g of powdered sugar and whip briefly to combine. Gently fold in 250 g of quark until evenly incorporated.

Assembly

Remove the sponges from their pans. Slice a thin layer off the convex top of the bottom sponge to create a flat surface. Set it on a cake platter and place a 9-inch cake ring around it. Brush the top generously with the roasted strawberry syrup, then spread the roasted strawberries in an even layer. Add the thinly sliced fresh strawberries in an even layer on top. Spread the cream filling evenly over the strawberries. Place the second sponge on top and press down gently.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. To remove the ring, run a thin knife around the inside edge. Dust the top generously with powdered sugar before serving. And voila; the Victoria sponge.

Tart Crust

• 150 grams all-purpose flour

• 15 grams almond flour

• 50 grams sugar

• 75 grams cold butter, in pieces

• 1 whole egg

• 1 pinch of salt

I throw all of this in a food processor and once mixed, bring it together with my hands. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Take out of the refrigerator and let warm up for just 10 minutes. Then roll out into a 10-inch circle and put the dough into a 9-inch tarte form. Put back into the refrigerator while making the browned butter frangipane.

Browned Butter Frangipane

• 100 grams softened browned butter

• 100 grams regular sugar

• 1 whole egg

• 25 grams all-purpose flour

• 100 grams almond flour

• 1 pinch of sea salt

Brown the butter on medium heat in a small pot (don’t let it burn). Put the browned butter in the fridge and let it cool until creamy. Beat the butter and sugar together until well mixed — no need to beat any air into it. Add the egg and mix until well combined, then add the dry ingredients.

Take the crust out of the fridge and spread the frangipane on top of the unbaked crust. Slice about 10 medium-sized apricots and spread them on the frangipane in a pattern of your choice. Bake the tarte in a preheated oven for 15–20 minutes at 400°F until you see the frangipane slightly browning, then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for another 20 minutes. At the end of the baking time, take the tarte out of the oven and brush with warmed apricot jam. Put it back in the oven for a couple of minutes, and voilà — the perfect summer tart.

Due to the enormous volume of requests for my homemade quark, this week’s post is not a cake recipe, but a how-to for my family’s favorite fresh cheese.

Quark is most likely the most ancient form of cheese. And most likely it is something that just happened — someone left the milk out, it acidified naturally through wild lactic acid bacteria, curdled, and was drained. Someone said “Wait! This is actually delicious.” This makes quark one of humanity’s oldest processed foods, predating hard cheeses by millennia.

Quark is a cornerstone of the German, Polish, Czech and Austrian diet, where it is consumed daily as a breakfast spread, baked into Käsekuchen (cheesecake), and used in various savory dishes. Variants of quark exist across the world under different names: fromage blanc in France, tvorog in Russia and Ukraine, skyr (strained further) in Iceland.

Quark is an un-aged, acid-set fresh cheese made by warming milk, adding a starter culture, letting it coagulate and then draining the whey. It is not yogurt (which isn’t drained) and also not cream cheese (which uses more fat and different processes). It comes in fat variations from magerquark with a fat content below 1% to rahmquark with added cream at up to 40% fat. Obviously the fat content dramatically changes not only the flavor but also the texture. Quark is, as mentioned earlier, very high in protein — up to 14% — and, depending on the variety, low in fat. Most importantly, properly made quark is smooth, creamy and spreadable — denser than yogurt, softer than cream cheese. It should never be grainy or watery.

Making quark at home

Being deprived of my beloved quark in the US, I have tried several home methods. By far the best one is using a mesophilic starter culture and a small amount of rennet. This gives quark the most authentic flavor and texture — far superior to the often mentioned buttermilk method, which employs cultured buttermilk to start the coagulation process. Even though it produces something edible, the results are inferior, mainly because buttermilk contains the wrong bacterial strains, which not only create funky, buttery flavors but also CO2 — something you don’t want in quark. Authentic quark uses cleaner mesophilic cultures that produce a milder, creamier flavor without the buttermilk’s gassy, slightly fizzy quality.

My best results have come from a mesophilic culture I bought from a company online called www.positivelyprobiotic.com. They have an activation protocol for the culture that is reminiscent of a sourdough starter. And the quality of the quark gets better with every batch you make — I promise!

Activation protocol

Here is their protocol:

• The first three batches need to be done back-to-back — one right after the previous batch, with no more than 24 hours in between.

• This is an heirloom culture, meaning you can use a portion of your last batch to make the next one.

• The cultures will not fully dissolve, and you may notice some lingering culture flakes in the next batch or two. This is very normal.

• Refresh your quark by preparing a new batch every five to seven days. If you need to take a break, freeze some quark in ice cube trays, and when you’re ready, just pop out a couple of cubes. Depending on how old the quark cubes are, you might need to double the amount of starter.

• Once your quark is active and consistently giving you good results, save some as a backup. Always keep your backup in the freezer and replace it every couple of months. Regularly rotating your backup will keep your cultures fresh.

• The first batch of quark may be runny or still liquid — this is normal during activation. The texture and flavor will develop over several batches.

• Quark needs straining to get rid of some whey. The drier you want your quark, the longer you should strain it.

• Mesophilic quark thrives between 68°F and 78°F. At the lower end of this range, fermentation will take significantly longer and may require a couple of additional batches to achieve full activation.

• Each packet contains enough starter to technically activate two batches. If you use only half of the packet, adjust the quantity of milk accordingly.

What you need

• Mesophilic quark culture

• 1 cup milk

• Glass jar

• Lid

Activating the culture

1. Add your quark starter to a clean jar.

2. Pour 1 cup pasteurized milk over the cultures, stir well, and let sit for a few minutes to rehydrate.

3. Stir thoroughly and put the lid on the jar.

4. Culture at room temperature between 68–78°F. Once it thickens, or at the end of 48 hours — whichever comes first — optionally place in the refrigerator for 6 hours.

5. It’s OK if it’s still liquid. The consistency will improve over the next few batches.

6. You can now proceed to the next step in the activation process and make your next batch of quark.

Making batches 2 and 3

1. To make the second batch, add 1 tbsp of your first batch of quark to 1 cup of milk.

2. Stir well and cover.

3. Let quark sit at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours. It’s ready when firm and separates from the jar when tilted slightly. Optionally place in the refrigerator for 6 hours.

4. Repeat this process to create batch three, using the starter from batch two.

Making your first real batch

Heat a gallon of good-quality organic whole milk to a maximum of 78°F — lower is fine, higher is not (you don’t want to be making yogurt). Incorporate one cup of your previous batch, ensuring the starter is not more than seven days old. Stir and add a drop or two of rennet. Even though you can make quark without it, rennet will improve the consistency of the curds

.

Let sit in a covered pot at room temperature for 12–18 hours until the milk has set into a firm, jiggly curd. You’ll know it’s ready when it pulls cleanly away from the sides and you can see a little whey pooling. Cut the curd gently into rough cubes with a long knife to help whey release. Drain by ladling curds into a cheesecloth-lined colander set over a bowl. Tie the cheesecloth and hang it over a pot — if it’s cool outside, you can let it drain on the patio. Otherwise drain it in the fridge.

• Soft, spreadable result: drain 6-8 hours

• Firmer, drier quark: drain 8–12 hours

Key variables to dial in

Temperature during culturing is everything. Too warm and you get an overly sour, grainy result; too cool and the set takes forever and is weak.

Draining time determines how dry and concentrated the quark becomes.

Rennet (even a single drop) gives a much cleaner, more cohesive curd that drains more neatly and has better body.

Fun facts about quark

• The dairy quark and the physics quark are entirely unrelated etymologically, which makes it one of the stranger naming collisions in science history.

• Germany consumes more quark per capita than almost any other nation — around 2–3 kg per person per year.

• Quark is the secret behind authentic German cheesecake. American cheesecake uses cream cheese (dense, rich, heavy). German Käsekuchen uses quark, which gives it a lighter, fluffier, almost soufflé-like texture that many Europeans consider vastly superior.

• Skyr is technically just Icelandic quark. Despite being marketed as a yogurt, skyr is legally classified as a fresh cheese in Iceland and is made by an almost identical process to quark.

• Quark was historically also used as a skin treatment. Before modern cosmetics, quark was applied as a cold compress for sunburn, minor burns, and skin inflammation across Central Europe. The cool, lactic-acid-rich curd is genuinely mildly anti-inflammatory, and the practice still has its believers in German folk medicine.

• Thomas Jefferson reportedly made a version of it at Monticello, having encountered fresh curd cheeses during his time as Minister to France. His farm records include references to fresh white cheeses made in a style consistent with quark or fromage blanc.

Since I am more of a “riffer” on traditional recipes than a slavish follower of recipe steps, here is my spin on this famous East Germany delicacy. In its essence the Eierschecke is a type of German cheesecake that adds a layer of pastry cream on top of the Quark filling. I know it is traditional to use ready-made pudding powder for the pastry cream. But I just like a rich pastry cream so much better, and Dr. Oetker’s vanilla pudding is not widely available here anyway. Crucial is the quark (Check out the recipe on my substack) I hope I will be forgiven by the kitchen gods that I have not stuck to the original DDR recipe. My recipe is for a 9 inch springform.

Since I made the first Eierschecke I already am changing the recipe slightly. For the crust I use my 3-2-1 but with toasted sugar. That gives some more caramel flavor; the crust bakes darker and more crumbly. Toasted sugar tastes a little like caramel but without the sugar actually melting. And you can replace it in any recipe for normal sugar. My goal was to pick up the flavor of the caramel on the fruit side also on the crust. To toast the sugar, you use a whole package of sugar to make it worth your while (2.2 lbs bag), since it will take you about 4-5 hours to toast. Pour it into a glass or ceramic form with a slow heat conduction, and put into a preheated oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Start stirring the sugar after one hour, every half hour, until it is a very light brown. It might get a little clumpy but a food processor will help to pulverize it once it has cooled down.

I know that traditionally the Eierschecke is made on top of a yeast dough. I am not crazy about that. The moisture soaks through it and I just love any variation of a 3-2-1 crust or a Mürbteig as we say in German. And I was told by Eierschecken-Experts that it is not a sacrilege.

The Crust

• 180 g all-purpose flour

• 120 g butter

• 60 g toasted sugar

• a pinch of salt

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Throw everything in the food processor. Once it is all mixed, bring it together with your hands. Form a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for at least an hour.

The Pastry Cream

I love a pastry cream with more yolks and more butter than traditionally used. It feels more luxurious, smooth, and rich on the tongue than your typical recipe.

• 300 g whole milk

• 1 vanilla bean

• 80 g sugar

• 6 egg yolks

• 30 g cornstarch

• 60 g unsalted butter

Whisk the egg yolks, half the sugar, and the cornstarch until creamy, about 3–5 minutes. Bring the milk, the scraped vanilla bean (or vanilla extract), and the remaining sugar (25 g) to a boil. If using the vanilla bean, let the hot milk sit and the vanilla steep for 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and heat the milk again. Start pouring a thin stream of the hot milk into the egg, sugar, and starch mixture, whisking constantly. Once you have incorporated about half the milk, pour the egg-milk mixture back into the pot with the remaining milk. Place over medium heat and stir until the cream begins to bubble; hold it at that temperature, whisking constantly, for about a minute. Remove from heat. Once it has cooled to just above room temperature, whisk in the softened butter.

The Quark Filling

• 500 g quark

• 150 g heavy cream, whipped

• 150 g sugar

• 50 g butter, very soft or liquid

• 2 egg whites

• 75 g all-purpose flour

• 10 g cornstarch

• zest of 1 lemon and juice of ½ lemon

I changed this from my first Eierschecke recipe, so we have a better separation of colors between the layers. Mainly I omitted the yolks and replaced them by the egg whites. But that changed the whole process. I whipped the quark in a stand mixer, with the lemon juice and the zest. I added half the sugar (75 gr) and the melted butter (50 gr). Then I sifted in the flour and the cornstarch. In a separate bowl I beat the egg whites with the second half of the sugar and once stiff folded it in the quark. Then whipped the heavy cream until stiff. and carefully folded it in the Quark-mix. The goal is to keep everything as airy and light as possible. Pour the entire cheesecake filling onto the prepared shortcrust base.

Assembly and Baking

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface and line the springform pan with the dough, pull the edge up about 2/3 of the height of the pan. Pour the quark filling in to the Springform. Spread the pastry cream on top and bake for 55–60 minutes at 325°F. Should the top get too dark, place a sheet of parchment paper on top of the cake. The cake is done when the center still has a jiggle — you do not want to bake it stiff. Turn off the oven but do not remove the cake. Stick a wooden spoon in the oven door to let the heat slowly escape. Let the cake cool slowly in the oven for 2–3 hours in the oven. Then let it cool down further until completely cooled. Dust with powdered sugar. Or not. :)

But what is the meaning behind this weeks title, “Rhabarber, Rhabarber, Rhabarber”? it is the classic filler-word murmur from German-language theater and film. Whenever extras would portray a crowd talking in the background, they simply reach for the German pronunciation of rhubarb and whisper or murmur “Rhabarber, Rhabarber, Rhabarber…” over and over — from a distance, it sounds like a natural, inarticulate conversation without any real words being distinguishable. In a figurative sense, today the word is also used more broadly to describe meaningless muttering and empty chatter in other words, language without any real content. Basically: the German take on “ yadda, yadda, yadda.”

As mentioned in my previous recipe: Rhubarb is a fascinating plant, for thousands of years, only its roots were consumed, and not for culinary purposes. Rhubarb roots were traded as a highly valuable laxative and digestive remedy. In medieval Europe, dried rhubarb root cost more per pound than cinnamon, opium, or saffron — and traders grew fabulously rich importing it. Only with the wide introduction of sugar the rhubarb stalks were turned into an edible delicacy.

Today’s cake, I went with an upside down rhubarb tart tatin, but again with a little twist. I recently read about toasted sugar and decided to take this idea out for a spin. Toasted sugar tastes a little like caramel but without the sugar actually melting. And you can replace it in any recipe for normal sugar. My goal was to pick up the flavor of the caramel on the fruit side also on the crust. The crust is vaguely based on my trusted 3-2-1 this time with no egg but with toasted sugar and some added baking powder for extra lightness and crunch. And let me tell you, it really worked. Even though rhubarb draws quite a bit of liquid, the crust stayed really crisp and flaky even after a day.

First, to toast the sugar, you use a whole package of sugar to make it worth your while (2.2 lbs bag), since it will take you about 4-5 hours to toast. Pour it into a glass or ceramic form with a slow heat conduction, and put into a preheated oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Start stirring the sugar after one hour, every half hour, until it is a very light brown. It might get a little clumpy but a food processor will help to pulverize it once it has cooled down.

The crust:

• 180 gr of all purpose flour

• 120 gr of butter

• 60 gr of toasted sugar

• a pinch of salt

• a teaspoon of baking powder

Throw everything in the food processor. Once it is all mixed, bring it together with your hands. Form a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least an hour.

The caramel:

• 80 gr of sugar

• 80 gr of butter

In your baking pan, I use a 9 inch tart tatin pan from Le Creuset, melt the sugar until liquid and medium brown (don’t burn it). Then add the butter and stir until you have a caramel. Take off the heat.

The rhubarb:

• 10 stalks of rhubarb (this depends a bit how thick your rhubarb is)

For this recipe I sliced the rhubarb with a potato peeler in thin strips and arranged the strips from the outside towards the center on top of the caramel in concentric ring.

Now take the dough out of the fridge. Let it warm up a little, about 10 minutes. Then roll out your dough in a 10 inch circle. Slide it on top of the pan with the caramel and the rhubarb. Tuck under a bit on the sides. Poke some holes into the dough with a fork so some of the steam can evaporate. And put some extra sugar on it. (That will make it extra crunchy) Bake at 350 degrees until light brown. Take the pan out of the oven and let it cool. The dough will appear soft when you take it out, but will get harder once it cools down. Flip the tart and voila. Best with some sweet whipping cream!

Its delectable history goes way back into 19th-century Philadelphia, where a certain Elizabeth Goodfellow made a lemon custard pie with no less than 10 eggs. Elizabeth then pondered a good use for the leftover egg whites, and lo and behold, she whipped up a meringue. Voilà, the birth of a culinary landmark! By the 1860s, Lemon Meringue Pie recipes had popped up all over popular cookbooks and magazines.

At its core, the Lemon Meringue Pie sounds simple enough: a flaky crust, a lemon custard, and a meringue on top. But beware — there are pitfalls, and the meringue is one of them.

Many debates can be had about the perfect crust, I used a high tart form for this pie, as opposed to a pie foil or form. My crust recipe does not have any vegetable shortening in it — I am simply not a fan. Instead I used both salted and unsalted butter. Below are the ingredients; you can just put them all in a food processor. Start with a little water, then add up to 30 ml. Make a disk from the dough and put it in the fridge for 2–4 hours.

Flaky Pie Dough

• 200 grams unbleached all-purpose flour

• 15 grams granulated sugar

• 50 grams salted butter, cut in pieces

• 100 grams unsalted butter, cut in pieces

• 15–30 milliliters ice water (adjust as needed)

Roll the pastry into a 12-inch circle, ⅛-inch thick, and fit gently into the 9-inch form. Prick the bottom with a fork. Freeze the shell for 20 to 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 375°F. Line the frozen shell with baking paper, fill with beans or pie weights, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the weights and paper, turn the heat down to 350°F, and continue baking until the shell is golden brown, about 15 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool slightly, but leave the oven on.

Lemon Curd

• 120 milliliters fresh lemon juice (about 4–5 lemons)

• 5 eggs

• 6 egg yolks

• 15 grams granulated sugar

• 90 grams salted butter, cut in pieces

• 90 grams unsalted butter, cut in pieces

Whisk together the 5 eggs, 6 egg yolks, and 15 grams granulated sugar in a heatproof bowl until combined. Stir in 120 milliliters fresh lemon juice, then set the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water (double boiler). Stir constantly until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and whisk in the salted and unsalted butter a few pieces at a time until fully melted and smooth. Strain and pour into your shell, then bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the filling is just set. Remove the pie and turn the oven to 375°F.

The Meringue

I decided on a Swiss meringue for this pie. It is the most stable of all the meringues, doesn’t weep, and has the advantage that the egg whites are fully cooked when they go in the oven. I love the consistency of a Swiss meringue — fluffy and foamy, with just the right firmness.

• 250 grams sugar

• 5 egg whites

Lightly beat the egg whites to break them up, then add the sugar. Place over a double boiler and keep stirring with a spatula or a whisk until the temperature reaches about 145–155°F (use a digital food thermometer) and the sugar is fully dissolved. This can take up to 10 minutes. Transfer the mixture to your mixer bowl and whisk on high until you see soft peaks. Fold in some extra grated lemon zest. Spread the meringue over the custard, making sure it reaches the edges and touches the pie crust. Bake until the meringue turns light brown. Let it cool at room temperature for at least 4 hours. Do not put the meringue pie in the fridge.

I like the top crispy. If the meringue is soft on top, put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes at 400°F — or use a torch!

P.S. This recipe is Mama Sara approved. Here is a direct quote from her: “It’s like the best lemon meringue pie from your childhood, only better. Perfect acid balance in the lemon, but the hint of crunch on the meringue top contrasted with the softness of the bottom layer of meringue — it is so light you feel you could eat the whole thing in one sitting. The crust is like being in some sort of buttery, crumbly heaven.”

This recipe loosely follows Claire Saffitz’s version from her New York Times bestselling book, Dessert Person. I added some extra ginger to cut through the sweetness of the carrots, but the most notable exception here is that I refused, on principle, to make a cream cheese frosting. I had a hunch that I could replace it with a brown butter and mascarpone frosting. It was all going well until I tried to cover the cake with it — the entire thing started to clump and fall apart. Since a thick layer of frosting didn’t sit well with me to begin with, I simply scraped it off and dusted the cake with powdered sugar instead. To me, this solution turned out to be far superior to a cake smothered in yet another layer of frosting. Some people like frosting, some people don’t — you say tomato, I say tomahto. I won’t judge you if you decide to cover the cake in your favorite frosting. But it definitely does not need it. This carrot cake is so moist and full of flavor that it tastes fabulous without. I’ll admit it was nice to have just a little frosting between the layers, but in my humble opinion, that was plenty.

To make the cake batter, think of three components prepared in three separate bowls: the dry ingredients, the wet ingredients, and the egg-sugar-oil emulsion. Once integrated, the batter is baked in three separate nine-inch pans.

Dry Ingredients

Pecans — 150 g

Flour — 325 g

Ground Cinnamon — 3 teaspoons

Baking Powder — 8 g

Kosher Salt — 3 g

Baking Soda — 6 g

Ground Cloves — ¼ teaspoon

Toast the pecans at 350°F for 8 minutes until golden brown, shaking the baking sheet halfway through. Let cool. Put 100 grams of the pecans in a zip-lock bag and crush with a rolling pin. Crush finely and add to the dry mix. Reserve 50 grams to add to the finished batter at the end.

Wet Ingredients

Carrots — 450 g

Buttermilk — 240 g

Grated fresh ginger — 2 tablespoons

Grate the carrots coarsely and the ginger on a fine grater. (If you like your carrot cake on the softer side, do this first and let the buttermilk tenderize the carrots for 30 minutes to an hour.)

Egg / Sugar / Oil Emulsion

Sugar — 150 g

Brown Sugar — 150 g

4 large eggs, at room temperature

Neutral vegetable oil — 225 g

Beat the eggs with a whisk for 30 seconds, then add the sugar. Whisk the egg and sugar mixture on high speed until it reaches ribbon consistency, about 4–5 minutes. Turn the mixer to medium speed and add the oil in a slow, thin stream to create an emulsion.

Add the wet and dry ingredients to the emulsion in two additions, alternating between the two. Use the paddle attachment on the lowest setting. Once everything is incorporated, fold in the 50 g of coarsely crushed pecans.

Divide the batter evenly between three 9-inch pans that have been oiled and lined with a round of parchment paper. Bake at 350°F for about 30 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and let cool completely. Once cooled, loosen the edges with a knife and flip onto a wire rack. Peel off the baking paper.

Brown Butter and Mascarpone Cream

Brown 200 g of unsalted butter, then let it cool until solid but not refrigerator-hard. Beat the butter and powdered sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy. Carefully fold in the mascarpone — do not overbeat or it will start to clump. Vanilla paste is optional; given the depth of spice in the cake itself, it is unlikely to be missed.

Powdered sugar — 300 g

Unsalted butter — 200 g

Mascarpone cheese — 200 g

Assembling the Cake

Place the first layer on a cake platter and cover with cream. Add the second layer, cover with cream, then place the third layer on top. If you have cream left over, apply a very thin layer to the sides of the cake — this will help the powdered sugar to stick. Dust the entire cake generously with powdered sugar.

Voilà: a carrot cake without cream cheese frosting. What is most endearing about this version is how brightly the ginger and spices shine through.

Rhubarb is a fascinating plant: for thousands of years, only its roots were consumed, and not for culinary purposes. Rhubarb roots were traded as a highly valuable laxative and digestive remedy. In medieval Europe, dried rhubarb root cost more per pound than cinnamon, opium, or saffron — and traders grew fabulously rich importing it.

Before the 18th century, nobody ate the actual stalks of the rhubarb plant. It took the wide availability of sugar for the sour rhubarb to make a serious impact in the kitchen. And I promised myself this year that I would play more seriously with this baking vegetable— yes, botanically, rhubarb is a vegetable, even though a New York judge in 1947 classified it as a fruit, and food bureaucrats to this day still consider it one.

I personally like rhubarb best early in the season, before it grows too robust.

This tart consists of three elements: crust, pastry cream, and macerated rhubarb pieces.

The Crust

I made a variation of my favorite crust here: the German 3-2-1 (flour, butter, sugar). Instead of regular sugar, I used 50% light brown sugar and 50% white sugar. I was going for a crisp, crumbly crust, so I added only an egg yolk — no whites — to achieve a sandier texture.

• 225 g all-purpose flour

• 150 g butter

• 38 g sugar

• 38 g light brown sugar

• 1 egg yolk

Put all ingredients in a food processor and mix until crumbly, then bring the dough together by hand. Rest in the fridge for at least an hour. Roll out and press into a 9-inch tart pan, then return the pan to the fridge.

The Rhubarb

I cut the stalks on a bias so I could lay them out in a pattern, but that is not necessary. I used about ten stalks of the same thickness for this recipe. Place the cut pieces in a bowl, add two heaping spoonfuls of sugar, toss to coat, and let them macerate for at least 30 minutes, ideally an hour to draw out some of the liquid and to soften the rhubarb.

The Custard

I use my favorite pastry cream for this. Its creamy sweetness and intense vanilla aroma balance the tangy rhubarb perfectly.

• 200 g whole milk

• 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

• 50 g sugar

• 4 egg yolks

• 20 g cornstarch

• 40 g unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

Whisk the egg yolks, half the sugar (25 g), and the cornstarch together until creamy, about 3–5 minutes. Bring the milk, scraped vanilla bean, and the remaining sugar (25 g) to a boil.

Let the hot milk sit so the vanilla can steep for 20 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean, then heat the milk again. Begin pouring a thin, steady stream of the hot milk into the egg-sugar-starch mixture, whisking constantly. Once you have incorporated about half the milk, pour the egg-milk mixture back into the pot with the remaining milk. Place over medium heat and stir continuously; once the cream reaches a bubbling stage, hold it at that temperature while whisking constantly for about one minute. Remove from heat. Once it has cooled to just above room temperature, whisk in the softened butter until fully incorporated.

Assembly

Remove the tart pan from the fridge. Spread the pastry cream evenly over the bottom, then arrange your rhubarb pieces on top. Bake for 35–40 minutes in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

The aroma of apples also happens to be one of my favorite sense memories. In the early 90’s, when you walked into the foyer of Bouley, the great David Bouley’s famous TriBeCa restaurant—there were always crates of fragrant apples. The scent seduced me the moment I opened the door. That’s how paradise smells. If I’m honest, I also love that I can share apples with my horse. Every ride with Peanut ends at the front door of our house, where he waits patiently as I run inside to get an apple for us. I take a bite, then he gets a bite.

One of the great flavor marriages of this world is apple and butter. That’s why the Tatin sisters’ upside-down Tarte Tatin became one of the world’s most beloved desserts. For this apple cake recipe I chose a granny smith, mainly because I wanted its tartness to balance the sugar and the butter. This ubiquitous apple, which originated in the 19th century from a compost heap in New South Wales, is a perfect match.

For this cake, I was aiming for a combination of flavors and textures: browned butter, ground toasted almonds, sweet soft custard and tangy apples — all on a crust with a nice buttery crisp to it. And it worked just as I had imagined. I made a variation of my favorite crust here: the German 3-2-1 (flour, butter, sugar). Instead of regular butter, though, I used brown butter to extract some extra nutty flavor. And instead of regular sugar, I used 50% light brown sugar and 50% white sugar. I was going for a crisp, crumbly sort of crust with the slightly nutty taste of the brown butter. I added only an egg yolk and no whites to achieve more of a sandy texture.

This cake is made in a 10-inch pan.

The frui:

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced very thin. Drizzle some lemon juice over them — this way they won’t brown, and the extra acid helps balance the sweetness of the crust.

For the crust:

300 g all-purpose flour

200 g browned butter

50 g sugar

50 g light brown sugar

One egg yolk

Brown the butter and put it in the fridge to cool until it is almost hard. Put all ingredients in the food processor and mix until crumbly, then bring the dough together by hand. Rest in the fridge for at least an hour. Then roll out and press into a 10-inch springform pan. Return the springform with the dough to the fridge.

The extra layer:

100 g slivered almonds (toasted)

30 g sugar

Put in the food processor and roughly grind. Spread over the bottom of the springform.

For the custard:

120 g crème fraîche

2 egg yolks

30 g sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and cornstarch until creamy and very pale in color. Then add the crème fraîche. Pour over the almonds, then arrange the apple slices on top — be creative. Dust the cake with powdered sugar before you place it in a preheated oven and bake for about 50 minutes at 350°F. Watch closely, as baking times can vary.

Last week, I leapt out of my comfort zone. My daughter somehow managed to convince me to spend the better part of two days trying to master a marzipan cover for Swedish Princess cake. After struggling for hours to place that green cover onto the actual cake, I decided this week to go for something comfortingly familiar. Something simple, rustic, and with vivid memories of my grandmother and mother making something similar in my childhood. There is something so informal and inviting about a sheet pan cake — especially those with a pillowy, buttery yeast dough. Butter- or Zucker-Kuchen is, in all its simplicity, absolutely delicious with a cup of coffee. Without going into the solid fruitiness of a classic Swabian Zwetschgen-Datschi (which I will explore later), I just added a small amount of plums cut into cubes — kind of an alibi fruit, so I can have the illusion of not just consuming butter, almonds and sugar. I used plums because we had them in the house, but the recipe would work perfectly well with peaches or apples. Basically, this is a brown butter sugar cake with some plums added. It works perfectly well without fruit, too. The key is the brown butter, which elevates this recipe with its nuttiness.

For the brown butter

350 g butter

1 pinch of salt

For the dough

400 g all-purpose flour

10 g dry active yeast

125 g milk

30 g sugar

70 g butter, room temperature

A pinch of salt

2 eggs

For the topping

400 g plums

200 g almonds

100 g sugar

¼ tsp cinnamon

For the brown butter, place the butter in a small saucepan, melt it and simmer over medium heat, stirring, until the water it contains has evaporated. As soon as you see small brown specks on the bottom of the pan and the butter has taken on a brownish color, remove the pan from the heat, transfer the butter to a bowl and let it solidify. To speed the process up, put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

For the dough, put the flour in a bowl and press a well into the center. Dissolve the yeast in the milk, add a little of the sugar, and pour it into the well. Dust lightly with flour, cover the bowl, and leave in a warm place for 10 minutes until the surface of the pre-dough shows cracks. Add the remaining sugar, butter, salt, and eggs, and knead everything on a low setting for five minutes. Then knead on a medium setting for another 7 minutes, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Let the dough rest in the bowl in a warm place for about 1 to 1½ hours. Then roll the dough out evenly on a floured surface, place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, cover with a towel, and leave to rise in a warm place for one hour.

For the topping, beat the brown butter with the salt for a few minutes until light and creamy, then transfer to a piping bag fitted with a round tip — or you can use a zip-lock bag with one corner snipped off (about ½ inch wide), which works perfectly fine. Remove the pits from the plums and cut them into ½-inch cubes. I macerate the plums with two spoonfuls of sugar for about 30–45 minutes, especially if the plums are on the harder side

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Mix the sugar with the cinnamon. Preheat the oven to 400°F (top and bottom heat / conventional). Press holes into the risen dough with your thumb at close intervals — ideally all the way down to the base of the tray — then pipe the butter into the indentations. Distribute the plums between the butter dots on the dough. Spread the almonds evenly over the cake, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top.

Bake at 400°F for 20–25 minutes, until the almonds on top are golden-brown and caramelized. Allow to cool slightly, cut into pieces, and serve promptly with a proper cup of coffee.

It is definitely not a German classic — I don’t remember anything like it from my childhood in Baden-Württemberg. Even though the gâteaux renversés stem from the Middle Ages and have a long history in Europe across all cultures, they do seem to have lost some of their appeal, especially in Germany.

Funnily enough, the concept became enormously popular in the early twentieth century in the US, thanks to the canned pineapple industry. The Hawaiian Pineapple Company ran a recipe contest around 1925 that reportedly received thousands of entries for pineapple upside-down cake, cementing it as an American classic. From there, the upside down idea made its way back to Europe and is now a global phenomenon. To be clear, the Tatin sisters’ apple tart— dating from the 1880s—did find its way into French cookbooks in the early 20th century — but at least in my home country, upside down baking simply wasn’t a thing.

This recipe is for a 9-inch springform pan. Yes, you can make an upside down cake outside of a skillet! First, line the bottom of the springform with a piece of baking paper.

The Caramel

• 140 g sugar

• 80 g butter

• 1½ tablespoons grated fresh ginger

Sprinkle the sugar into a pan and melt it over medium heat. Once it reaches a deep amber color, add the butter, turn down the heat, and stir to combine. Let it bubble up and keep stirring — watch this closely. You want a beautiful color, but take care not to burn it, as it will turn bitter. Stir in the grated ginger, then remove from the heat and let it cool slightly.

Pour half of the caramel into the springform, spreading it evenly over the bottom. Arrange the plums, cut into eighths, in a circular pattern and press them gently into the caramel. Once the plums are distributed, pour the remaining caramel over them. Set aside.

For the batter:

• 250 g pastry flour

• 1½ teaspoons baking powder

• ¼ teaspoon baking soda

• 170 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 220 g sugar

• A pinch of salt

• 3 large eggs

• 220 ml buttermilk — I mix yogurt and milk, or sometimes sour cream and milk (50/50) if I don’t have buttermilk on hand.

Mix the flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl. In your mixer, cream the room-temperature butter and sugar at medium speed for at least 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until the batter looks smooth and emulsified. Add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, until everything is incorporated. Do this gently — you don’t want to over-beat at this stage, just carefully fold everything together.

Pour the batter over the plums and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 50–55 minutes. Place a sheet pan or a piece of aluminum foil on the bottom rack of your oven — the springform will most likely drip a little. And voila another delicious upside down cake. Make sure to let it cool completely. If you want to eat this cake over several days, glaze the plums, they keep their color better that way and stay fresh.

For Sara, no fancy Austrian cake holds more allure than a fresh raspberry tart. This is why I make this beautiful little berry tart for her every year for her birthday—it’s her most requested birthday cake. I love to cover the baked shell with a thin layer of dark chocolate, not only because it protects it from getting soggy — and that also creates an amazing contrast to the sweet, rich pastry cream plus the tart raspberries. Otherwise, this little gem is quite straightforward: buttery crust, luscious pastry cream, and fresh berries.

I’ve played with lots of different crusts for this tart and while I do like a pâte sucrée with creamed butter and the whole lot, I tend to always go back to my simple 3-2-1. Three parts flour, two parts butter, one part sugar, and one egg yolk. You can switch some of the sugar for brown sugar, or leave out the egg for a flakier crust. Lately I’ve been adding a spoonful of our verjus for moisture, which makes it even better.

This recipe is for a 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan.

• 225 g flour

• 150 g butter

• 75 g sugar

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 pinch of salt

• 1 spoonful of verjus

I mix the dough in a food processor and then bring it together by hand but you can make the whole thing by hand. If the dough is a bit dry when you bring it together, add a spoonful of water or verjus. Let the shortcrust pastry rest in the fridge for at least an hour, then roll it out and press it into your tart form. Blind bake with parchment paper and dry beans at 375°F until the edges start to turn very light brown. Let your pastry shell cool, then remove it carefully from the tart form.

For the thin chocolate layer:

• 60 g of 75% dark chocolate

• 25 g butter

Melt the butter, add the chopped chocolate, and melt carefully. Brush the pastry shell with the liquid chocolate.

For the pastry cream:

I love a pastry cream with more yolks and more butter than traditionally used — more in the style of Dominique Ansel. It feels more luxurious, smooth, and rich on the tongue than your typical recipe.

• 200 g whole milk

• 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped (or high-quality vanilla extract)

• 50 g sugar

• 4 egg yolks

• 20 g cornstarch

• 40 g unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

Whisk the egg yolks, half the sugar (25 g), and the cornstarch until creamy, about 3–5 minutes. Bring the milk, the scraped vanilla bean (or vanilla extract), and the remaining sugar (25 g) to a boil. If using the vanilla bean, let the hot milk sit and the vanilla steep for 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and heat the milk again. Start pouring a thin stream of the hot milk into the egg, sugar, and starch mixture, whisking constantly. Once you have incorporated about half the milk, pour the egg-milk mixture back into the pot with the remaining milk. Place over medium heat and stir until the cream begins to bubble; hold it at that temperature, whisking constantly, for about a minute. Remove from heat. Once it has cooled to just above room temperature, whisk in the softened butter.

Once the pastry cream has cooled, spread it over the chocolate layer — and now your tarte is ready for the raspberries. You will need about 2–3 pounds depending on whether you place only one layer or add more in the middle. I personally like to glaze a fruit tart with a very thin layer of Dr. Oetker Tortenguss. It makes the fruit shine and keeps the berries fresh much longer. Sara and my kids don’t like the Tortenguss and since the raspberry tart is generally devoured in one sitting, I don’t really need to worry about keeping it fresh anyway.

I am writing this recipe from Silver Lake, Los Angeles, where we have rented a house with a palm tree view for a couple of weeks — so Sara can rehearse her role of Queen Herodias, which she will be singing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on the 24th of this month. This cake is inspired by Republique, in my opinion Los Angeles’s best and most beloved bakery.

Their abundant pastry displays are beyond anything you will find in town, and the quality of their pastries and cakes is simply unmatched. This cake is inspired by a small tartelette from Marge Manzke’s book Baking at Republique, and I dared to turn it into a whole cake and switch out the blueberries for blackberries. I baked this a couple of times this week, and working out of an oven I don’t know — even though it is a German brand — made it a bit harder than it should have been. But here it is: my take on Margarita Manzke’s Blueberry-Almond-Brown Butter Cake.

Sara described the result: “The bright tang of the blackberries, with the soft custardy sweetness of the almond center, contrasted with the crisp of the outer crust, hits about six different contrasts all at once. In short: this cake is a knock-out.”

This is for a 9-inch springform or a deep tart pan.

180 g unsalted butter

75 g all-purpose flour

75 g almond flour

225 g powdered sugar

5 egg whites

500 g blackberries

40 g toasted sliced almonds

Here it goes:

Brown the butter in a saucepan. All the moisture will evaporate, the solids will darken and fall to the bottom. Whisk continuously and make sure it does not burn — you want the beautiful nutty smell of browned butter. Pour the browned butter through a fine sieve so all the dark solids stay behind, then set aside.

Next, combine the almond flour, powdered sugar, and all-purpose flour in a bowl and mix well.

Make sure your egg whites are at least room temperature. I like them even warmer and sometimes beat them for a minute over so over steam — but be careful, you don’t want to cook them. Add a pinch of salt and whisk the whites until they have soft peaks.

Now carefully fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites in three portions, being gentle to keep as much of the egg white structure intact as possible. After the second addition, begin incorporating some of the now-warm browned butter into the batter. Add the last third of the dry ingredients, then the remaining butter, and make sure everything is well incorporated.

Pour the batter into the 9-inch springform or tarte form. (Put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of your oven in case you have any leaks.) Carefully arrange a loose layer of blackberries on top, staying about an inch away from the sides of the pan.

Bake at 375°F for about one hour, checking after 50 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean. If the sides begin to darken before the center is done, loosely put a sheet of aluminum foil over the top.

Once the cake is done, let it rest for 10 minutes, then release it from the form. Allow it to cool completely before heaping fresh blackberries and toasted sliced almonds on top and dusting all with powdered sugar.