Extra Special Stollen Slices (Asda) By @Cinabar

It is Boxing Day (26th December), and that means we had left-over Christmas roast sandwiches for lunch. I suspect there are an awful lot of households that had the same lunch. As we had the left-overs from the big day, we fancied something as a little treat for dessert and decided to open up the Asda Extra Special Stollen Slices.

Stollen is a German Christmas treat made with a yeast dough and filled and rolled with seasonal spices and fruits. There is a layer of marzipan too for that extra Christmas flavour.

I opened the tray, and there are six slices, and they are not too big. The top is covered in icing sugar, which makes these dangerous. I had black jeans on, and now I’m wearing dusty jeans! The Extra Special Stollen Slices are out of this world, and I totally forgive them their loose icing sugar. The slices are moist and so full of fruit and currents that the texture is a delight. There is a touch of rum and a flavour of marzipan and spices too; these are spot on. They may not look that impressive, and pre-sliced rectangles of cake never do, but don’t underestimate them; these brought a smile to our faces and will be on the list of items we must get again next year.

Co-Op Christmas Market Sandwich - currywurst & sauerkraut [@NLi10]

I've had great luck picking up the Christmas sandwiches early this year from the discount  section - and here is number 2!

Unusually this isn't the boring side of Christmas - it's the exciting Christmas market - and a German one at that!  Short of including a sausage grilled on a fire pit and some Weissbeer this is as close as you can get.

So much seasoning! And pickled cabbage!

Colours are awesome too - that's likely to add to the nutrition as well as the textures and tastes.

A decent amount of filling, and smells great - no extra chilli flakes needed here.

While the flavours are a little muted compared to an actual German market, this is pretty much as close as you are going to get in a UK Supermarket and everything is very high quality.  The curry isn't too strong for lunch time either.

I'm looking forwards to spotting this one more often and getting the tastes and textures of Germany throughout the run up to Christmas.

Henrich Haeberlein Lebkuchen (Present) By @Cinabar

This awesome tin of Lebkuchen was a gift for Christmas. Lebkuchen is a traditional German baked treat that is spongy, but I still refer to it as a biscuit. It is typically enjoyed during the Christmas season. The biscuits are often made with a mixture of flour, honey, spices, and candied fruit. This fine tin is the cute shape of an old-fashioned truck, complete with moving wheels. If that wasn’t cool enough, there is a wind-up mechanism at the front that plays a tune. It is a super cute biscuit tin, and one that is definitely a keepsake for after Christmas.

 Inside the tin are three different types of Lebkuchen biscuits: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and no chocolate. All three are lovely and soft, with light spicy notes. I dunk most biscuits, but not these because they are already soft. The chocolates are my favourites, but I'm honestly more than happy to munch on all three. I enjoy a bit of cinnamon, and these do the trick; they also scream Christmas to me, and go great with a hot chocolate on a cold evening. I really am going to miss all the wonderful spiced (specifically cinnamon spiced) goodies that are around this time of year, and I do need to stack up a bit before the season ends.

Lebkuchen Stars (Tesco) By @Cinabar

We have a tiny branch of Tesco Express near us, it was built on a pub car park and sort of slotted into some of the spaces. I’m not complaining it is a really good place to easily pick up the basics, and has a friendly feel to it but it isn’t the sort of place I would have expected to pick up these Lebkuchen Stars. I love Lebkuchen I have German heritage and was brought up on these as a Christmas treat, so I picked up a bag when I saw them. The lady on the till asked me what ‘Leb-cutchen’ Stars were and I explained they were pronounced ‘Leeb-kook-en’ and that they were a German biscuit/cake cross over with seasonal spice. I told her if she liked nutmeg and cinnamon she’d love them. There are many types of Lebkuchen in reality, different shapes and some flavoured with chocolate or more heavily of ginger, but these are simple stars.

I opened up the bag and was pleased with the aroma, there was plenty of cinnamon in there. The base of each biscuit is dipped in chocolate and the top is iced with a very thin glaze, just enough to crackle when you bite in. The texture is soft like a firm cake, and the spices just lovely and warming, all that cinnamon is just so very seasonal. These are good biscuits, not as good as the ones my grandma used to bake (but these things never are) but still delicious all the same. I hope you are tucking into some nice seasonal treats tonight and looking forward to the clock ticking to midnight. Happy New Year everyone, here is hoping 2022 is a good one.

Dresden Stollen (Germany) By @Cinabar

The Christmas decorations may well all be tidied away, but I still have lovely foods in the Foodstuff Finds store cupboard from the season. This particular Christmas Stollen came from Germany, via my dad who was visiting there recently. It is quite stunningly packaged in a beautiful tin, which is certainly a keepsake. I opened up the tin and found a huge Stollen, wrapped in tissue paper and sealed in a bag, all ready to get stuck into.

We carefully took the Dresden Stollen cake out of it's packaging, and tried to avoid the icing sugar spilling, as it was very generously dusted. We cut some slices and shared out the cake. Looking at the cake there was a good generous supply of fruit and nut mixed in, and this was reflected in the taste too. I was pleasantly surprised at how moist the cake was, and the combination of fruit and nut gave the cake great texture and flavour. It was sweet, the nut flavour was delicate, and the added fruit gave a richer tone. The texture wasn’t too heavy, and I found one slice was a very decent portion. I wrapped the rest of the cake, and put it back in its tin for safe keeping, content with the fact that I could hang on to the flavours of Christmas for a little while longer. Thanks dad for giving us this fab cake. :-)

Knoppers - King of the Eurowafer (@NLi10)

What must be going on for 20 years ago I went to Germany. This was the first time I'd ever left the UK, and was a fascinating dip into other cultures. Kinder Surprises were so cheap, and there were other products (that have since come to the UK) but also they had a lot more wafer based snacks than we had. At the time I was more fascinated with Ritter Sport and took lots of varieties back with me, but of all the snacks in the wafer category one has always remained my favourite.

Knoppers is king of the Eurowafer.

At the time I was laughed at for picking up what is essentially a toddlers snack, like a Milky Bar would be in the UK. All the German teens had eaten them of course,  but seeing a foreign guy buying lots and sharing them was a source of constant amusement. Naturally they accepted free food and agreed that it was a nice nostalgic thing for them but they were more into the alcohol and live music.

Now I find myself comparing every wafer I buy and review to these, and so I decided I should have a reference review to repeatedly link back to.

It's been harder to get these in the UK recently for some reason, these are the Polish packed versions, but still identical and made in Germany. Oddly I found them in an Iranian supermarket and I think they were selling them off as they were a pound for three. Naturally I bought 12 - and my office got through 9 on one day!

 

Essentially they are a standard wafer, with chocolate, and white creme, and hazelnut spread! Like a chocolate and Nutella sandwich. They are light and not too filling, but are very satisfying. It doesn't matter if they get a bit smushed and they don't really melt either.

 

They have a satisfying crunch then smoosh when bitten which beats most U.K. Wafers meagre fillings into submission. The fillings also avoid the dryness of your standard wafer, and the half choc means that you still get all the flavours.

The only real wafer bar that's made it to the UK is Kit-Kat, Blue Ribband having disappeared along with Kwil-Save.

Apparently you can still get a stack of these for a Euroover on the mainland, and some say that those are the full stacks of 5 (one for each school/work day?) Marketed towards the 9:30 snack break which is the sleepy Brit equivalent of 11am these are the perfect second breakfast and will get you home for lunch.

Having introduced my office to these I think that no other wafers will come close and I should restock with haste.

Deloba Bahlsen Biscuits (Waitrose) [By @SpectreUK]

Bahlsen, in Germany, made these jammy puff pastry biscuits. The jammy centre is a mixture of redcurrant juice and cherry juice. I was slightly worried; as I don’t recall ever tasting redcurrant before and I don’t really like cherry in anything. On tasting the first puff pastry it melted in my mouth as I chewed leaving a sweet jammy filling that was altogether very moreish indeed. Clearly these two fruit in the jam filling were meant for each other, and also intended to match my tastebuds. The sharpness of the cherry and been blunted somewhat by the redcurrant, working together to complement and make a perfect filling rather than battle against each other to produce a weird taste instead. This left a sweet succulent jam twist at the end of each puff pastry biscuit. Each biscuit was like a little puff pastry jam pie. The serving suggestion of five biscuits just wasn’t enough for my greedy nature, so I was rather relieved I’d been to the gym before polishing off the fifteen in the box for pudding with a hot white chocolate drink to wash them down with.

By Spectre

Zum Glockenspiel Pork Steak Sandwich (Birmingham) [By @SpectreUK]

I always try to make it to the German Market each year when it visits Birmingham for a month or so before Christmas. Over the last couple of years it's been a bit more difficult as I was working outside of the city. This year I'm back at university and was able to wonder over for a quick bite to eat one lunchtime. I usually hang around the busiest part of the German Market, which is in Victoria Square around the huge fountain there. This year to save my legs I had a look around some of the stores nearest the big bronze bull outside the Bull Ring. The large store called Zum Glockenspiel first caught my eye. It had a barbecue side and a bar side with tables at its centre. Being rather hungry and smelling the fine cooking spicy meaty smells I headed towards the barbecue side.

I could see fizzling away quite happily on the grill lots of pork steaks, which seemed a grand change from the usual hot dogs I buy in Victoria Square, so I just had to try one. The red pork steak had been heavily seasoned with paprika and was served in a brown roll. I added a little ketchup and German mustard which was available on the side of the store and waited for it to cool. The succulent barbecued pork steak had a flavoursome paprika spice to it. As I bit through the soft brown roll the meat almost melted in my mouth. The whole compact style of pork steak in the bread roll was easy to eat and not messy at all, so it was good to munch on the go for a quick lunch. Perfectly cooked and spiced this pork steak was heavenly tasty, moreish and quite filling too. I desperately wanted another one once I'd finished, but realised I was probably being over greedy!

Zum Glockenspiel also sells half metre long Bratwurst hot dogs, and to wash it down they sell beer or hot chocolate drinks. I shall definitely be back before Christmas!

By Spectre

Germany Inspired Party Food from Waitrose [By @Cinabar]

We were recently given the opportunity to write about World Cup party food, for a country of our choice from Waitrose. With England out of the World Cup I thought I would cash in on the fact that I am half German, and switch allegiances. We sat down to watch USA versus Germany on thursday night and sorted out the goodies.

First up for main plates, one of the most common easy eating foods in Germany is a selection of meats, cheese and pickles. We choose a good selection of german style salamis, some bavarian smoked cheese and a jar of gherkins (with dill flowers for extra authenticity). This is simple food, but German sausage meats really are the best. I love the flavours, the garlic and pepper spices all just make them melt in mouth. The smoked cheese and gherkins really set off the flavours too. It is easy eating but remarkable tasty stuff.

No German party feast would be complete without a bowl of pretzels, and the these salt and pepper variety ones are a nice twist on the usual salted flavour. They are crunchy and tasty, but the pepper was really quite mild.

For drinks Spectre had a wander over the the beer section in Waitrose. If I ever can’t find him while shopping there, the most logical place to look is the beer isle where the remarkable selection of ales etc seems to fascinate him! Anyway he chose a few bottles of two german sounding beers to fit the scene.

For sweet nibbles Waitrose are an excellent stockist of Bahlsen biscuits, so this was easy. We pretty much picked up the full selection - yum! I love the wafers dipped in chocolate, and tried to get as many of these for myself as politeness would dictate.

The other best german dessert is the Black Forrest Gateaux, which Waitrose handily has in cupcake form, so I picked up a few of these to celebrate success if necessary. The cupcakes are a rich chocolate sponge, with a cherry on top and a creamy filling in the middle.

A big thank you to Waitrose for supplying a voucher so I could choose themed goodies and giving me the opportunity to show off our German feast. And congrats to Germany too for beating USA one - nil, fingers crossed for them through the rest of the games.

Take a look at the: Waitrose Football Party Page

By Cinabar

Super Dickmann's (Germany) [review by @NLi10]

At work recently we got some goodies brought from Germany - Super Dickmann's little chocolate and mallow goodies.  These are very similar to Tunnocks Tea Cakes but with a wafer base instead of biscuits and no jam.

Here we have the super ones (which are large) and the schoko strolche which has three different flavours of chocolate on the outside.

It seems the white ones are the most popular where I work, but the bigger ones were also dark chocolate so many fancying that flavour would choose that.

Look at this for opulence - practically Krispy Kreme in the excitement opening these boxes!

They don't photograph very well the dark one especially but how do they taste? Well the chocolate was a little underwhelming but the goo - the goo was fantastic!

Look at that little white fluffy volcano. Yum! I'd certainly seek out these again, even though the chocolate and the wafer we're a little less to my taste than lovely English tea cakes.