Tuesday, December 1, 2015

German Christmas Market Treats at Gewurzhaus


On Sunday, I attended a German Christmas Market Treats class led by Ina Low at Gewurzhaus with 13 other ladies.  My great grandparents were German, so I was particularly interested in this baking class.

Ina, our class leader, came to Australia from Germany more than 30 years ago:


She is a lovely lady and this class was lots of fun. 

To quench our thirst, we drank Gluhwein Sangria, made with Gluhwein that Ina brewed in class:


We also made two kinds of Weihnachtsplätzchen (Christmas cookies), as shown at the top of this post - cinnamon Kipferln (the crescent shaped shortbread biscuits) and Elisen Lebkuchen (chocolate covered gingerbread biscuits).

In addition, we made apfelstrudel which contained Speculaas crumbs, and served to us hot with vanilla custard on the side:

 
and a mini stollen (note the "swaddling" bump):


We all got to take home a box full of the goodies that we had made.

I enjoyed this class - Ina was friendly and informative, and there was a low stress level.  Because it was mostly demonstration with limited hands-on (shaping Kipferln, kneading stollen, scooping Lebkuchen), there was no fierce competition for equipment like there is at many baking classes. This was a relief.  I was happy to go with the flow and listen to Ina's stories as she showed us how to make these gorgeous German Christmas treats.

Gewurzhaus
543 Malvern Road
Toorak Victoria 3142
Australia
Ph: +61 3 9827 5736

6 comments:

Johanna GGG said...

sounds like a fun class - will be interested to see if any of these treats appear in your christmas gifts

Kari said...

This sounds fantastic. What a fun class to do leading up to Christmas.

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

Ooh how nice to come home with all of these lovely treats! I prefer classes where I get to do things though although it does take so much longer and as you say there can sometimes be a mad grab for equipment.

Cheri Savory Spoon said...

This sounds like my kind of cooking class, lovely looking treats that you got to bring home. Take care!

Mae Travels said...

Lebkuchen are such a great tradition! I just had some last night -- early celebration. Your class looks lovely.

best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

Andrea_TheKitchenLioness said...

Gaye, looks like you enjoy those German treats around Christmas time. There are so many lovely recipes out there for Stollen, Lebkuchen, etc. The Gewürzhaus looks like a wonderful place (I believe you wrote about them before) for baking traditional German baked good!