Puddings must have been a very popular dessert in Austria, Bohemia and Hungary during the early nineteenth century as my grandmother's recipe notebook includes several recipes, called alternatively “koch”, “shaum” or ”pudding”. They can be chocolate or rum flavored, made of rice, almonds or hazelnuts, and they all have a lot of eggs - 6 to 8 eggs. They were very popular during the Christmas season, and they still are today.

What gives the cake the consistency of a pudding is the method of steam baking: A well-greased baking dish with the mixture is placed in a pan of boiling water in the oven and steamed in medium heat for a long time – 45 minutes to an hour. The best baking dish for puddings is a tube pan that allows the steam to reach the center, to have an evenly baked result.

Usually, puddings are served with chaudeau or fruit sauce. Chaudeau (chaude eau - French for warm water), is a sweet wine foam, which originally only consists of egg yolk, sugar and white wine, boiled in a water bath or steamed in a bain-marie. Choosing the right wine is essential in the preparation, sparkling wine or champagne is particularly fine. A dash of cognac or sherry can also be nice. Alternatively, the Chaudeau can be prepared with red or rosé wine.

Red wine Chaudeau from recipe notebook page 13: 40ml red wine, 8 egg yolks, 160g sugar.

For fruit sauce, I like to prepare strawberry and rhubarb sauce:

4 cups diced strawberries

4 cups diced rhubarb

1 lemon juice

3 tbs sugar

3 tbs water

Combine the strawberries, rhubarb, lemon juice, sugar and water in a medium-sized saucepan.

Bring it to a boil and let it cook on low to medium heat for about 30-45 minutes, cook less or longer depending on how thick you want it.

These crescent-shaped cookies originate from Vienna, Austria, where they are a much-loved, traditional Christmas cookie. They are also quite common throughout Europe, particularly in Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

Legend has it that their shape was created to resemble the Turkish crescent moon, to celebrate one of the victories of the Hungarians and Austrians over the Turkish army.

Traditionally, Vanillekipferl are made with ground walnuts which result in a moister texture, but ground almonds or hazelnuts can also be used. Ground blanched almonds will result in a light-colored cookie whereas walnuts and hazelnuts will result in a darker, speckled cookie.

Vanillekipferl are considered a very special cookie because, unlike other baked goodies, they are somewhat difficult to bake. The batter becomes quite fragile once hardened, which is why it takes a professional baker with skilled hands to create this special Christmas biscuit. It takes a lot of practice to actually, be able to shape the dough without breaking the biscuit.

Vanilla sugar adds a distinct flavor to these cookies. Vanilla sugar is just sugar that has been flavored with vanilla. It is common in many European baking recipes and can be found in little packets in stores. However, if you cannot find them, it is easy to make vanilla sugar yourself.

And finally, really important, to let them cool completely before removing the from the baking sheet.

Ingredients

240g butter (soft)

80g granulated sugar

2 egg yolks

280g flour (all purpose)

100g almonds (roasted, finely ground)

1/2 tbs vanilla extract

Confectioners’ sugar mixed with vanilla sugar

Instructions

1. Stir the butter with the sugar and the egg yolks until fluffy

2. Add the flour and mix completely

3. Add ½ tbs vanilla extract and the ground almonds

4. Work everything together completely into a soft dough

5. Refrigerate the dough for a couple of hours to keep the butter firm

6. Roll the dough into a long sausage, about 4cm (1.5”), and cut it up into small slices of 1 cm (0.3”).

7. Create from each slice a small noodle and shape it into a crescent and lay them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet

8. Bake in a preheated oven of 350°F (180°C) for 15 minutes or until the crescent tips become golden-brown

9. Let them cool completely before removing from the baking sheet and cover the crescents with confectioners’/vanilla sugar

Christmas and Hannukah are the time of the year to bake cookies. My grandmother's recipe notebook has many cookie recipes, to post and share:

Linzer Cookies

Chocolate Kisses

Date Kisses

Vanilla Crescents

Friends of the House

Hussar Donuts

Cookies have been tightly linked to Christmas since the Middle Ages. This can be traced to recipes from Medieval Europe biscuits when many modern ingredients such as cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, almonds and dried fruit were introduced into the West. By the 16^th century, Christmas biscuits became popular across Europe, with Lebkuchen being favored in Germany and pepparkakor in Sweden, while in Norway krumkake was popular.

Cookie-like hard wafers have existed for as long as baking is documented, in part because they survive travel very well. Early cookies were usually not sweet enough to be considered cookies by modern standards.

Sweet cookies seem to have their origins in 7^th century Persia, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. They spread to Europe through the Muslim conquest of Spain. By the 14^th century, they were common in all levels of society throughout Europe, from royal cuisine to street vendors. The first documented instance of the figure-shaped gingerbread man was at the court of Elizabeth I of England in the 16^th century. She had the gingerbread figures made and presented in the likeness of some of her important guests.

Besides the fun of baking cookies and sharing them with family and friends, it is a great activity to bake cookies with kids. We have a fun time baking with my grandchildren and also get rewards at the end when the cookies are ready, hot from the oven. It is also my chance to have quiet time to communicate with my otherwise constantly active grandchildren.

Baking has huge benefits for kids. Hands-on cooking activities help children develop confidence and skills. Following recipes encourages children to be self-directed and independent. It also teaches them to follow directions and develop problem-solving skills. Baking also helps children’s fine motor and eye-hand coordination skills by chopping, mixing, squeezing, and spreading.

Ladies’ Whim is an old Hungarian recipe “női szeszély”, which was very popular decades ago. In my grandmother's recipe notebook, I have a few versions. It was and is also popular all around Eastern Europe with names like “damin kapric” or “damin ćef” or “damina nature”.

The origin of the name is unknown, but the different versions that float around may suggest that the ingredients women used to make this cake depended on their actual (whimsical) mood. The most varied part of this pastry is the base, some recipes call for a yeasted dough, while others make it with a sponge batter.

The cake is very easy to make - ready to eat in 45 minutes. A light short-crust dough, a layer of raspberry jam with a topping of meringue. And it is the favorite cake of my husband.

Ingredients

140g butter (soft)

140g flour (all-purpose)

80g sugar

100g hazelnuts (roasted and ground)

1 egg yolk

4 egg whites

80g confectioners’ sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 cup raspberry jam

Instructions

1. Mix butter, flour, sugar and nuts until becomes crumbly, add 1 egg yolk and knead to a ball

2. Roll out into a 9 x 9” (22 x 22cm) baking pan lined with parchment paper bake in a preheated oven of 350F° (180C°) for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

3. Remove from oven and let it cool slightly then spread on raspberry jam

4. Beat 3 egg whites with vanilla until it forms peaks, add the confectioners’ sugar, and beat until stiff and shiny

5. Spoon the beaten egg whites on top of the cake and bake again in 375°F (190°C) oven until lightly brown, about 15 minutes

6. Cut into squares with a sharp knife, while hot

Strudel is a stuffed pastry from Austria, very popular in all former Austro-Hungarian countries (Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic) and in Germany and Alsace (France). It is the most iconic Austrian and Hungarian dessert, so its dough deserves a special post. The various fillings will be in separate posts.

While preparing the book Pastries from the Past, I learned a lot about making the strudel dough, how to stretch it, and how to fill and roll it up to a strudel.

Strudel Dough is special because the dough is very thinly wrapped around a heavy filling. Therefore, the challenge of a good authentic Strudel dough is that it needs to be very thin and at the same time to be able to hold a heavy huge filling without breaking apart.

There is a belief that making Strudel dough from scratch is difficult and time-consuming.

It's not!

Many have been using Puff pastry or Phyllo dough to prepare Strudel because they can be easily bought ready-made in the store. This is completely wrong. It's prepared the same way as a noodle dough just that it calls for a lot of oil ---- the dough is left resting covered in oil for 1 hour.

The oil and the egg make the dough super elastic so that you can roll and pull it out to a very thin layer.

The Strudel is only a strudel with a strong crunchy thin layer wrapped around rich sweet fillings, like apples, nuts, cherries and poppy seeds or savory fillings like cheeses and cabbage. Only the strudel dough can take that much filling without breaking.

The following table describes the differences between Puff pastry, Phyllo and Strudel dough:

  Ingredients (for 2 Strudel rolls)

  280g flour (all-purpose)

  160ml water (lukewarm)

  2 egg yolks

  3 tbs vegetable oil

  1 tsp vinegar

  Salt

  Flour for dusting

  Instructions

  1. Add half of the flour to a mixing bowl add salt and mix well

  2. Make a well in the center and add the lukewarm water

  3. Add 2 tbs oil, egg yolks and vinegar

  4. Mix the ingredients well until smooth

  5. Add the rest of the flour and keep mixing to a smooth dough

  6. Keep kneading well and long enough until the dough is not sticky

  7. Keep kneading more on a floured surface for 10 minutes

  8. The dough should be soft enough but firm. If too soft add more flour and if too stiff add a little water

  9. Make 2 smooth balls of equal size. Cover them with oil all around

  10. Let them rest for 1 hour in a warm place

Before filling the strudel rolls (repeat for each dough ball)

  11. Roll out the dough ball on a floured surface

  12. When thin enough start to stretch the dough in the air with the back of your hands

  13. Lay it on a floured tea towel and keep stretching to a rectangle

Preparation Notes

Maraschino is a liqueur obtained from the distillation of Marasca cherries. The small, slightly sour fruit of the Tapiwa cherry tree which grows wild along parts of the Dalmatian coast, lends the liqueur its unique aroma.

In the Maraschino Walnut Cake, the liqueur flavor is quite distinct but not overwhelming. The combination of walnut, chocolate and liqueur with the chocolate icing makes this cake remarkable.

Ingredients

150 g granulated sugar

6 eggs

50 g dark chocolate (grated)

200 g walnuts (ground)

4 tbsp breadcrumbs or rice flour

5 tbsp Maraschino or other liquor

Instructions

1. Beat the egg whites with 2 tbs sugar until stiff

2. Mix breadcrumbs and liquor

3. Beat egg yolks with the remaining sugar until fluffy. Add breadcrumbs, walnut and chocolate

4. Fold in the egg whites gradually

5. Bake in a greased baking form in a 350°F (180°C) oven for 45 minutes

Can be topped with chocolate ganache or any chocolate icing, like the following:

Chocolate Icing

100 g dark chocolate (melted)

20 g confectioners’ sugar

50 g butter

Stir into the hot melted chocolate the sugar and then the butter. Pour over the cake.

The Maraschino liquor is an ingredient that features in many classic cocktails that originated in the late 1800 and early 1900. This clear liquor is full of great flavor and a lot of history!

The most popular Maraschino liqueur cocktail is the Martinez Cocktail but there are many others, like Hemingway Daiquiri, Last Word, Mary Pickford, Aviation Cocktail and Brooklyn Cocktail. For recipes for these cocktails see the Guide to Maraschino Liqueur & Top Cocktails - A Couple Cooks: https://www.acouplecooks.com/maraschino-liqueur-cocktails/

The Almost Famous cocktail, I had the other day: Don Julio Blanco, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino liqueur and freshly squeezed lime juice.

Champs de Lavande cocktail: Arbutus blue gin, Creme de Lavande, Maraschino liquor and lemon juice.

It is one of the cookie recipes from my grandmother's notebook. Meringue and fruit combination that has a soft and chewy texture. Very easy and quick to bake.

• If not served immediately, store in an airtight container, with wax paper between layers.
• The cookies are crisp on the outside and slightly chewy inside on the first day, later they become chewy throughout.

Instead of dates, as the original recipe instructs, I like to use, occasionally, dried cherries or raisins.

Ingredients

3 egg whites

60 g granulated sugar

150 g dates (measured with seeds)

150 g almonds (slivered or sliced)

Instructions

1. Roast the almonds lightly

2. Cut dates in half, remove seeds, cut each half again

3. Beat the egg whites to foam, add sugar and continue beating for about 5 minutes

4. Add almonds and dates and mix

5. Place a teaspoon full of mixture on a parchment paper lined baking sheet

6. Bake in a low preheated oven at 325°F (180°C) for 20-25 minutes

Baking is all about eggs and the way it binds the other ingredients of the pastry. The function and behavior of eggs can really vary depending on how we treat them in the recipe.

Eggs have a role in everything from cakes and cookies to meringues and creams — they create structure and stability within the batter and help thicken and emulsify creams and custards. Add moisture to cakes and other baked goods, and can even act as glue or glaze.

In some recipes in my grandmother's recipe notebook, the weight of all the ingredients is defined in relation to the weight of the eggs - using a Balance Scale, popular in every Austro-Hungarian household, for example, the instruction for using flour "4 eggs heavy" means 4 eggs in the left tray to balance against the amount of flour in the right tray.

A large chicken egg, nowadays, in the shell weighs about 57 grams in total; that’s about 38 grams for the white, 19 grams for the yolk, and a fraction for the shell. Inside the shell, a large egg has about 3 1/4 tablespoons of total egg matter — 2 parts white to 1 part yolk.

The number of eggs used in my grandmother's cakes is astounding. I wonder if the eggs of those days were smaller than what we have today. Some recipes use 10, 12 or 16 eggs for the dough and then even more for the cream. It is not rare to be left with a few egg whites because the dough used more egg yolks than whites. My grandmother had recipes to solve this problem by special bakes to use the spare egg whites. For example, the recipe for Bishop’s Bread allows adding any number of egg whites to the batter. Or the Snow Cake that is made only with egg whites. Not to mention the "Kisses" that use exclusively egg whites

Egg Whites

When egg whites are used alone, usually whipped, they incorporate the air bubbles created during the whipping process into the batter, The whipping creates a fairly stable foam that is used to make everything from puddings, sponge cakes or meringues. To help stabilize egg whites even more, we can add sugar, cream of tartar or lemon juice.

From the meringue, my grandmother had recipes for Chocolate Kisses and Date Kisses or use it as a topping for some cakes like Ladies' Whim. The sugar makes whipped egg whites incredibly stable — you can even pipe it using a piping bag as in the recipe for Moor in Shirt.

My grandmother's recipes include instructions on how to get air better into the batter and keep it in for the lightness of the cake: by beating eggs longer (up to half an hour, by hand, as they did it then) and beating the yolks with sugar separately from the whites, at room temperature, or by beating over a saucepan of simmering water.

It is a delicate balance to decide how much whipping is enough, my experience is that over-whipped egg whites will become clumpy, and difficult to fold into the batter. Also, using too many egg whites in a batter can make the cake dry.

Egg Yolks

Recipes that use just the yolk of an egg do so for the yolk’s fat content and emulsifying abilities. The fat gives baked goods extra-rich flavor and a velvety texture.

The yolk also has the unique ability to bind liquids and fats together, creating an emulsion that prevents them from separating. This emulsion process helps create a more homogenous mix of ingredients — aiding in an even distribution of liquid and fats throughout a recipe for smooth batters and creams.

When yolks are heated, the proteins they contain unfold and gel together. This is a delicate process; on too high heat proteins will gel and turn curdled and grainy, but when warmed gently over a steam bowl, as many recipes instruct, egg yolks have the ability to thicken products like creams and custards.

Some recipes in my grandmother's recipe notebook call for boiled egg yolks pressed through a sieve and added to the cake or cookie batter. It seems to be an old European secret to make incredibly tender baked goods. I tried, and surprisingly, it worked. The Linzer Cookies turned out incredibly delicate.

Whole Eggs

Using the whole egg gives you the best of both worlds. They carry many of the emulsifying properties of yolks and act as excellent binding agents in batters. Eggs combined with starchy elements, like wheat or nuts flour, coagulate and form the structure of baked goods, and they contribute to the wonderful golden brown color and moist texture of many pastries.

When mixed with sugar (like in a cake or cookie batter), eggs help trap and hold air — not quite as well as whipped egg whites, but enough to give the finished product some lightness and lift. The combination of eggs and sugar also adds a great deal of moisture and flavor to a recipe.

Besides the qualities of eggs for baking they are one of nature’s most nutrient-dense foods. One large egg contains 6g of protein and only 70 calories. Eggs are an important source of choline and high-quality protein, with all 9 essential amino acids. Eggs also contain many vitamins - several B vitamins, along with vitamins A and D and minerals like phosphorus, iodine and Selenium.

The name of this cake is Snow Cake because its recipe, on page 18 of my grandmother's recipe notebook, requires egg whites only. The resulting cake is absolutely not white. It has the color of almonds and walnuts that are mixed into the beaten egg whites.

When you use the egg yolks for all kinds of dough you are left with any amount of unused egg whites that is the time to make a Snow Cake. Very easy to make and delicious with or without cream.

Ingredients

7 egg whites

80 g granulated sugar

100 g walnuts (ground)

100 g almonds (roasted, ground)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 lemon zest

Instructions

1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff foam

2. Add the sugar, vanilla and lemon zest

3. Slowly add walnuts and almonds and mix well

4. Pour the batter into a well-greased baking form

5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (180°C) for 45 minutes

To make the Snow Cake more interesting, occasionally I coat the cake with Chocolate Ganache or Madeira Cream.

For the Chocolate ganache, the following recipe works best for me:

150 ml whipping cream

150 g dark chocolate (ground)

1. Heat the whipping cream (almost boiling)

2. Pour over the ground chocolate

3. Mix until smooth

For the Madeira cream, I baked the Snow Cake in a rectangular baking pan and cut it into two layers. For the cream, see the recipe for Madeira Cake.

In 1653, the Linzer Tart recipe was discovered in the cookery manuscript of Countess Anna Margarita Sagramosa of Verona.

The tart was baked like a pie with a delicious buttery almond crust, filled with black currant preserve and topped with a latticework crust. The recipe was developed using a crust made of nuts since they were easier to come by at times than wheat for flour.

In the Austrian city of Linz, bakers came up with a cookie version they could stock in their shops and it became a Christmas holiday tradition to find these lovely treats in the frosty windows.

This recipe was adapted from my grandmother's recipe notebook - page 59, where my grandmother called it Brown Linzer Tart (Braune Linzer Torte) - the color is due to the amount of cinnamon in the dough.

The Linzer Tart

Ingredients

250 g butter (soft)

250 g flour

100 g granulated sugar

250 g almonds (unpeeled and ground)

1 lemon zest

5 g cinnamon + ground cloves

2 egg yolks

Sour cream

1 cup black currant jam

Instructions

1. Stir the butter until fluffy. Crumble the flour with the butter

2. Add the ground almonds, sugar, lemon peel, cinnamon and cloves

3. Make this into a firm dough with egg yolks and sour cream. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts. If the dough is too soft refrigerate for 20 minutes

4. Roll out into 4 round sheets of 9” (22cm) on plastic (or clingwrap) sheets

5. Place the first sheet into a parchment paper-lined 9" (22cm) baking pan. Spread black currant jam on top of it. Stack the next 2 sheets on top with more jam on each. From the last sheet create the grid

6. Bake in a preheated oven of 350°F (180°C) for 40-45 minutes

For the cookies, the bakers would mix up a batch of Linzer dough, but instead of making a tart, they would make cookies with cut-out shapes such as stars, circles or hearts. These dessert artisans constructed sandwich cookies using a whole cookie and a cut-out cookie. In the middle, they would place the black or red currant preserves just like the tart. After the cookie is put together, the jam or preserves peek through the Linzer eye to make a beautiful dessert, perfect for the holidays.

The Linzer Cookies

Ingredients

250 g butter (soft)

400 g flour

125 g granulated sugar

250 g almonds (finely ground unpeeled)

1/2 lemon juice and zest

5 egg yolks (boiled)

2 egg yolks (raw)

Sour cream

1 cup raspberry jam

Instructions

1. Whisk g softened butter with the sugar

2. Mash the boiled egg yolks through a sieve into the butter

3. Add lemon zest and juice, and raw egg yolks and mix well

4. In a separate bowl mix the flour and the ground almonds

5. Pour the dry ingredients into the butter and knead together until smooth.

6. If too dry, add some sour cream until the dough is firm

7. Divide the dough into 2 equal parts (part for the bottoms and part for the tops) and refrigerate for 2 hours

8. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to cut out the cookie bottoms and tops

9. Preheat the oven to 350F° (180C°)

10. Bake the cut-outs on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges are pink

11. Spread raspberry jam on top of each cookie bottom and stack the top on each

12. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar

In my grandmother’s recipe notebook, there are a surprisingly large number of cake recipes made exclusively with different kinds of nuts. No flour or breadcrumbs added. I was surprised to learn that baking gluten-free was already so popular in the early 20^th century. I wonder how this abundance of nut cakes was related to health consciousness or just the availability of nut flour versus wheat flour. Most recipes use almonds, walnuts or hazelnuts. Mashed chestnuts seem to be also very popular cake ingredient in Austria and Hungary. Some recipes mix more than one nut type into the batter like in the Two Nuts Cake.

Nuts have many dietary benefits. A wealth of data from health research, diet studies and clinical trials suggest that nuts are highly nutritious and contain important vitamins, protein, unsaturated fats, fibers and minerals, while low in carbohydrates.

Different types of nuts have slight differences in their vitamin and mineral content. For example, among the vitamins and minerals, raw chestnuts contain vitamins B1, B2, B6, vitamin C, vitamin E, potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, and phosphorus.

Most of the recipes specifically instruct to lightly roast the nuts before grinding them - almonds and hazelnuts most of the time, but roasting walnuts is never recommended in my grandmother’s recipe notebook. I became curious about this and found research on the subject that indicates that roasting nuts at high temperature create a chemical change that affects their composition and health benefits while improving their taste and texture. The recommendation is to roast nuts at a medium temperature of 250°F - 265°F (120°C – 160°C).

A food processor is excellent for grinding nuts. Make sure the nuts are completely cold before grinding. How fine to grind/grate or crush the nuts and how to mix them into the batter varies according to the recipe. Some recipes ask for almonds with the skin or blanched or clean hazelnuts from most of their skin. My expert friend, Leora, insists that roasting and grinding the nuts yourself, as opposed to a store-bought nuts meal, has a big impact on the quality of the resulting cake. Also, you have control over how fine the ground nuts are – just crushed, only ground or finely ground.

Nuts are also used extensively for texture and decoration – slivered or sliced almonds, candied chestnuts, whole or crumbled hazelnuts or walnuts.

The Two Nuts Cake is my current goto cake.

It is very easy to make - takes about 20 minutes to prepare, 30-40 minutes to bake and an additional 10 minutes to cover with the espresso/chocolate icing.

The ingredients are also very simple - just the 2 types of nuts, eggs and sugar.

The result is excellent. A soft nutty flavor and the simple icing, when it hardens, will keep the cake moist for 4-5 days in the refrigerator.

The recipe was adapted from page 6 of my grandmother's recipe notebook. It took a few iterations to get the recipe right because the original recipe uses the weight measure of Loth (a medieval Hungarian unit of weight). The amount of sugar in the original recipe was 1/4 pound (250 grams) was too sweet so we reduced it to 150 grams.

  Ingredients

   5 eggs

   150 g granulated sugar

    90 g almonds (unpeeled roasted and ground)

   90 g walnuts (ground)

   1 tbs breadcrumbs

   Icing

   1 shot espresso coffee (very short)

   70 g dark chocolate

   Instructions

   1. Beat the egg whites until stiff

   2. Beat the egg yolks with sugar until fluffy (about 10 minutes)

   3. Add breadcrumbs and nuts and mix well. Fold in the egg whites

   4. Pour into a round greased tube baking form

   5. Bake in a preheated oven of 350°F (180°C) for 40 minutes

   6. Let it cool

   The Icing

   7. Break small pieces of chocolate into hot coffee and mix until melted

   8. Pour over the cake

Chestnuts are very popular in Hungary, mainly used for delicious cakes and desserts. Some types are toxic and shouldn’t be eaten.

Before boiling chestnuts in the shell, it is important to know that after peeling off the shell for 700g chestnuts in the shell you will have 450g shelled chestnuts. How to boil chestnuts:

· Bring a pot of water to boil

· Cut an X into the shell of each chestnut with a sharp knife

· Boil them for 5 -10 minutes

· Drain and let them cool

· Peel the shell and skin

We have a dinner invitation for the coming weekend and my friend asked me to bring a cake. I am going to make a Chestnut Cake. I think it is a good choice as it is a rarity and most people like cakes made of nuts and gluten-free. In North America, unlike in Europe, it is not very likely to find baked goods made of chestnuts in bakeries or conditories.

The Cake

Ingredients

330 g chestnuts* (mashed)

210 g granulated sugar

70 g almond meal or flour

8 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

105 g butter (melted)

Ingredients for the filling

110 mashed chestnuts

400 ml whipping cream

70 g granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

*I am using 1 can of unsweetened chestnut puree of 439 g, by Clement Faugier.

Instructions

1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until fluffy

2. Mix in lightly the mashed chestnuts

3. Beat the egg whites into a stiff foam

4. Fold in the egg whites

5. Add 1 tsp vanilla extract

6. Mix in almond meal or flour

7. Stir in the melted butter

8. Pour into a square, well greased baking sheets

9. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (180°C) for 45 – 50 minutes

The Filling

10. Make a strong foam from the whipping cream and sugar

11. Add the mashed chestnuts and vanilla extract

12. Cut the square cake into two equal parts for the layers

13. Fill between the layers and coat over the cake

14. Decorate with coffee syrup and/or candied chestnuts

I received this notebook from my cousin Georges when he visited from Belgium. He just said that it was found with my grandmother's belongings after her death.

The yellowing 80 pages of the notebook has more than 300 recipes in very clear and orderly written dense handwriting. The recipes are mostly cakes, desserts and other pastries.

My grandmother, Ilona Binetter (Adler), was born in 1886 in a Slovakian small town, then part of Austro-Hungary. She married in 1904, at the age of 18, and started collecting recipes as she began her married life with my grandfather. The recipes are in German and Hungarian, as she was fluent in both languages from her bilingual background.

My grandmother was very young when she married Fülöp Binetter, and moved to his hometown of Nyitra, about 32 km from Topoľčany. My Grandfather was an architect, and his family had a lumber wholesale business. Their first child was born in 1905, and two more sons in 1907 and in 1909.

She kept collecting recipes regularly throughout her life, in good times and bad. it is obvious from the changing handwriting and the styles of the recipes. Reading the recipes and experimenting with baking was a thrill for me and it presented a great insight into the ingredients, tools and baking conventions in Austro-Hungarian traditions of that bygone era.

During WWI, my grandfather served in the Austro-Hungarian army somewhere in Albania. Those years must have been difficult for my grandmother, having to raise alone their teenage boys. After the end of WWI and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, her life circumstances changed - moving to Bratislava and then to Zilina. Sometime, around 1924 the family moved to Budapest, Hungary.

My grandparents had a relatively comfortable life in Budapest, judging from photos taken at home and on vacations throughout Europe – holidays with friends in Opatija, Croatia, Nice and Monte Carlo in France, and skiing in Italy. I wonder if she kept baking as much as she did when her children were small.

By 1939 life became very difficult with all the anti-Jewish laws issued by the Hungarian government and the German occupation of Budapest in 1942. The war years were very difficult but the family survived.

My grandmother died in 1976 in Antwerp, Belgium. Among her belongings was this recipe notebook, which I received many years later from my cousin Georges.

It took me a couple of years to decipher the content and translate the recipes into English, which presented me with great challenges. The German language is more distinct about actions like mixing and whipping, according to intensity. The same goes for grinding nuts - is grinding pounded, crushed, grated, ground or finely ground? And then there are the names of ingredients that do not exist today in our every day or names not used anymore in modern German.

The discovery of the recipe notebook launched a year-long project to adapt the 100-year-old recipes to the current format, units of measure, tools and ingredients. It took a lot of baking, tasting and trying and resulted in a book including the most delicious and quintessential Hungarian and Austrian pastry recipes.

The original manuscript of the recipe notebook is now in the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. The archive link.

[German and Hungarian cake recipes]: collected between 1905 and 1960 / by Ilona Binetter (Adler).Author/Creator Ilona Adler Binetter 1886-1976 Description German and Hungarian pastry recipes recorded in a handwritten notebook by Ilona Binetter, nee Adler. Her granddaughter Judith Garfinkel published a selection of these recipes with annotations, contemporary measurements, and photos under the title "Pastries from the past: From my Grandmother's Recipe Book" (2022)

The book version of Pastries from the Past has 40 recipes of cakes, sweet and savory baked goods and desserts selected from the yellowing, 80-page notebook my grandmother kept throughout her life. The book is about the art of baking as it was practiced by a dedicated housewife in the early 20^th century, at the height of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until WWI, in Budapest between the wars, and the years after WWII under the communist regime in Hungary.

The book includes a selection of successfully tested delicious cakes and pastries from the 300+ recipes in the notebook. After the recipes were translated from German and Hungarian to English, they were carefully tested and adjusted to current units of measure, ingredients and tools.

A few words about my grandmother Ilona:

My grandmother, Ilona Adler, was born in 1886 in a Slovakian small town, then part of Austro-Hungary. She married in 1904, at the age of 18, and started collecting recipes as she began her married life with my grandfather, Fülöp Binetter. The recipes are in German and Hungarian, in the two languages spoken in her bilingual home.

The newly married couple moved to my grandfather's hometown of Nyitra, about 32 km from Topoľčany. My Grandfather was an architect, and his family had a lumber wholesale business. Their first child was born in 1905, and two more sons in 1907 and in 1909.

The Binetter family had a prosperous life in Nyitra until WWI, when my grandfather was enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army and served until 1918. After the war and dissolution of the Empire, the family moved to Budapest.

Between the two World Wars Budapest was a lively city and Jewish families were prosperous. The Binetter family thrived in trade and manufacturing owning the company Herkules r.t., Joinery and Building Material Trading, where my grandmother was also a partner. Their 3 sons were all grown-up, educated young men and successful in business. My grandparents had a relatively comfortable life, judging from photos taken at home and on vacations throughout Europe – holidays with friends in Opatia, Croatia, Nice and Monte Carlo in France, and ski in Italy.

From 1939 on, life became very difficult for the Binettr family with all the anti-Jewish laws issued by the Hungarian government and even worse after the German occupation of Budapest, in April 1942. The family lived through the deportation, hiding and the unimaginable atrocities of WWII - but survived.

My grandmother died in 1976 in Antwerp, Belgium. Among her belongings was a recipe notebook, which I received many years later from my cousin Georges. It took me a couple of years to decipher the content and translate the recipes into English, which presented me with great challenges. Reading her recipes and experimenting with baking was a great insight into the ingredients, tools and baking conventions of Austro-Hungarian traditions of that bygone era.

The recipes in Pastries from the Past book are organized into 8 sections: Cream Cakes – for people who like their cakes with cream, like my husband. Nut Cakes – as the notebook had surprisingly many recipes based only on almonds, hazelnuts, or chestnuts without any flour or breadcrumbs, I decided to have a section for all the people in my family with a gluten-free diet. Cookies – of course are for my grandkids to bake together or treat them. Puddings – are my new discovery. The notebook has a variety of puddings and for me, it was a novelty. Coffee Cakes and Salty Pastries – are for occasional entertainment, family gatherings and get-togethers with friends. Or just for a bite with morning coffee. Fruit Cakes – we tried a few fruit recipes from the notebook, one for the fruit of each season. And of course, Strudels – the quintessential Austrian / Hungarian dessert.

The book is available in bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Bookshop.org and others.