Schichttorte, or Baumkuchen Squares

/ October 17, 2014

I have to admit, I would have missed the episode of the Great British Bake Off had it not been for my son, who excitedly called to tell me they were doing a German cake, and what ‘Schichttorte‘ was. I had no idea, so I did what every German baker worth their salt would have done in this situation: I dropped everything in order to find out.

To be honest, it took me a while to realise that although I had never heard of a Schichttorte, Baumkuchen I had been making for years, in the run up to Christmas: thin layers of a pancake-style batter, grilled, layer by layer, in the open oven. The layers resemble the lines in a tree, hence the name ‘Baumkuchen’, or ‘tree cake’. Rather than in a cake, I would cut it into small, bitesize triangles, so called ‘tips’,  as in the tips of branches.

Traditionally. Baumkuchen is made on a spit over an open fire: the batter is applied in thin layers and the aim is to make them as regular as possible. In the privacy of your own home, and without a spit and open fire, such attention to detail is hardly necessary: in fact, after watching the Schichttorten episode, I was exhausted  by the attention to detail that seemed to be required for this task – needless to say, I had never bothered using scales or a tape measure, or even a pencil … The lines in a tree, after all, are irregular, depending on whether the year had been warm and dry, wet or cold. That’s my excuse, anyway.Schichttorte

So, if you watched GBBO, forget it – these tips taste just as lovely if they’re not perfectly regular! In fact, if you overdo it in terms of the thinness of the layers or by keeping it under the grill for too long to achieve more or darker layers, you’ll end up with a rather dry cardboardy substance, not those crisp, melt-in-the-mouth layers of goodness.

To convince you that it is – up to a point – child’s play, I even enrolled the help of my junior assistant, who fortunately lost interest by the time I needed to work under the hot grill. I actually use two tins: as it only takes around 2 minutes for each layer to brown, I use this time to apply a new layer of batter to the second tin.

I have to warn you, though: Baumkuchen takes an hour of intense grilling!

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Baumkuchen Spitzen (makes ca. 80)

  • 250g soft, unsalted butter
  • 240g caster sugar
  • 2 tbs vanilla sugar
  • 6 eggs, separated
  • 150g plain flour
  • 100g corn flour
  • 4 tbs rum
  • the grated rind of a lemon (unwaxed, please)
  • a pinch of salt

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Start by beating the egg whites with a pinch of salt, until they form soft peaks. In a second bowl, beat the soft butter with the sugar and the vanilla sugar; add the lemon peel, then the yolks, one by one, and finally the flour and the corn flour.Schichttorte3

Schichttorte1Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites. Dismiss any junior assistants at this stage or send them on a random errand: folding in the egg whites requires patience and a steady hand. In other words: an adult.Schichttorte4

Now the grilling begins: heat up your grill to a high temperature and place a cup filled with eater at the bottom of your oven.

Cut out baking parchment to fit the bottom of the tins you are using – cut it as neatly as you can to avoid the paper rolling up at the edges as these will invariably burn! Not that this has ever happened do me …Schichttorte5

Using a brush, spread a thin layer of batter to cover the parchment; this needs to be done fairly carefully, with the batter touching the sides of the tin as you want to avoid the parchment to roll up at the edges.

Schichttorte6

While one tin is under the grill, apply a thin layer of batter to the second one. The batter shouldn’t take long to grill – 2 minutes max – as otherwise the cakes will become too dry. Adjust your grill, if necessary.Schichttorte7

Repeat until you have finished up the batter. Unless you are Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry, don’t worry too much about an uneven surface. It’ll be fine.

Leave the cakes to cool, then cut into the required shapes. As it isn’t quite Christmas yet, I decided on small squares instead of the usual triangles. Schichttorte8

Cover with a thin layer of molten chocolate. or apricot glaze and chocolate. Although they might be a bit dry on the day, we store them in a tin, where they will gain a lovely consistency within a few days. Most of our Christmas treats are prepared at the end of November and eaten over the four weeks of Advent, hidden away in tins in dark, cool places where no child or partner can find them.

Fiesta Friday Badge Button I party @

I’ll be bringing these Baumkuchenspitzen along to this week’s Fiesta Friday over at Angie’s at The Novice Gardener – I am really looking forward to see who is co-hosting it this week. Check out the fun and enjoy the party!Schichttorte

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65 thoughts on “Schichttorte, or Baumkuchen Squares”

    • Little helper loves to help … sometimes i can distract her with a bit of playdo, at other times, I can’t. The amount of little hands that have to be cropped out of pictures, bits of food that have to be rearranged, again and again … And last week they ate a whole box of cookies, which I had put away to take pictures of later. Grrrrrrrr.

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  3. Another co-incidence in timing. For some reason I was thinking about this cake yesterday, and thinking once the weather gets really cold, this would be a fun thing to try. So thanks for a very timely and well explained post I should be able to follow. Wish me luck!

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      • Unless of course one considers these bakers had no clue what this cake was, clear directions on how to bake it and an exacting standard at the end. I love this cake, but hate the time I’m chained to my stove, but I just might make it again. 🙂

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      • It’s the downside of presenting the baking in such a nerve-wrecking and therefore exciting context: on the one hand it gets people excited, but I hope it doesn’t put them off trying it out at home!

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  4. a tree cake, that’s imperfect but beautiful (although your layers look perfect to me)! I love this idea so much. I’ve never tasted such a cake, but it looks delightful and looks like a lot of fun to make.

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    • It is fun to make if you don’t mind sitting in front of your oven. On year in the run up to Christmas my grill just stopped working, mid-cake, and I had to ask my neighbours if I could finish it off in theirs …
      Give the finished cakes a few days in a tin to improve their texture. Many of our Christmas biscuits need time to mature (try to explain that to kids, though!)

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  10. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how beautiful this is, but how time consuming it must be! This would truly be a labour of love. It looks just gorgeous – thanks for thinking of the FF gang! 😀

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    • Thank you, Sandhya! Our Christmas preparation is quite similar to yours for Diwali (both are festivals of light!) in that we make lots of different traditional sweets in the weeks leading up to it. I loved your Besan Ladu and have been enjoying the fireworks over the last couple of days 😉

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  16. I have to say it’s a bit unfair, I have to do everything on my own, you get a fully qualified professional help 🙂 my boyfriend is completely useless when comes to cooking. Can I borrow your personal assistant for this weekend? Haha this looks like a masterpiece Ginger and I agree with Dana- it’s German pride !!

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    • Fully professional and qualified – not really. My son’s actually getting quite good at it, he made pancakes today to distract the assistant for long enough to let me finish a task 😉

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  17. I give you a lot of credit for making this kind of a recipe – I am not sure I would have the patience, but can I have a few pieces from you? I am amazed your little helper did not hurt his hands while grating – I still do 🙂

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    • Oh Sandhya, you are too kind! I’ll head over right now – sorry for not responding earlier but I was missing in action (teachers have to sample every bug that’s doing the rounds, I’m afraid!) …

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    • Absolutely – go for it! And give it a bit of time before you eat it: quite a few of our traditional biscuits need a couple of days in a tin to soften up! I’ll be bringing you Springerle over Christmas, a traditional aniseed biscuit that takes a week or two. If you can’t wait you’ll have to risk a tooth or two 😉

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  25. Wow, they look fantastic! You have far more patience than me! Baumkuchen is quite popular in Munich, so it was interesting when we were in Tokyo last year to discover that they have quite an addiction to it too. They have it in beautiful presentation boxes everywhere! 😀

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  27. I loved these cakes when we were living in Germany, like you said though, GBBO made them sound way to complicated (and a bit too dry I thought!) Great explanation, will be giving them a try soon. My children and husband (he’s German) will be v pleased if they work out!

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  29. Hi! I made this but mine came out with more like a biscuit-y texture! Can i ask what kind of an oven do you use ? I made the cake on the broil option but had to bake each layer a little longer because it just wasn’t browning. The taste is really nice but it’s a biscuit! Could you pleasee help me out ?
    Thanks!

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    • I am really surprised about that – I use the broiler/grill to make them, too! By biscuity, do you mean a little dry? In that case keep them in a box for a few days and they will mellow – sometimes it takes a little time. I think I mentioned not to make the layers too dark as this can lead to a dry texture. Just give it a few days and let me know how you fare!

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    • That’s a good question! As long as your heating/grilling/broiling element is above the cake tin and you have enough space (height) in the drawer to fit the tin you should be fine!

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  31. Hi Ginger! 🙂
    These look amazing! I have been looking for a good Baumkuchen-recipe for quite a while now but never really trusted one… Thanks for sharing yours – this will be my go to source once I finally come around making these treats! Saved! 😀

    Have a baketastic day,
    Your Backdirndl

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  33. If it weren’t for Netflix I would never have known about this show. For some reason (Robin Hood, Sherlock, Ripper Street, Poirot) it thinks that we are British. But I am German and I always thought that these tortes were amazing. I bought a Baumkuchen at ALDI last year. I was pretty okay.

    Thanks to that show I spent an entire day screwing up a standing meat pie. I don’t know how that they did it. Cause mine totally died. But I am so looking forward continuing to try my hand at our traditional German goodies.

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