Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas

This book has authentic recipes for every day of Advent (and then some) with beautiful pictures not only for each recipe but also throughout each section. The author used custom Lino cut prints to represent each day of advent, making it artfully organized and heirloom quality. There is a sewn in ribbon bookmark to keep your place as well, a lovely touch and it has a red embossed fabric cover with metallic silver lettering and decorative details. The recipes are all in grams, so if you don’t have a kitchen scale, this book should inspire you to get one. It is a masterpiece of holiday cheer and my new favorite baking book. I highly recommend it for anyone who appreciates Christmas traditions, loves cookies, or values high quality, well written books. It would make a cherished gift on its own and/or an amazing resource for creating gifts.

There’s only one problem with this book and that is I CANT DECIDE WHICH RECIPE TO MAKE BECAUSE THEY ALL ARE SO GOOD!!!! I never write reviews but I felt it a must with this book. All the recipes are fabulous and easy to understand. I especially appreciate that the author has so many photos of all the lovely bakes - I had bought another German baking book and there were barely any photos of the bakes rather just photos of the German city she lives in. Pretty but not helpful for a baking book. Overall - it truly is a gorgeous book and a must have for anyone wanting to bake amazing German holiday treats!!!

I love this book. I lived in Germany many years ago and have wanted to replicate some of the holiday recipes. This is exactly what I've been looking for. Authentic German recipes, nice photos, and good instructions. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of the traditional recipes are gluten-free, a big bonus for my gluten-free family members!

The author photographed and created the art in this book. It’s beautiful and makes a great gift for anyone interested in German baking.

This book is definitely what Christmas dreams are made of! Each festive recipe is presented just like an Advent Calendar, so as each page unfolds, it reveals another wondrous delight! If you have ever been to a European Christmas Market or experienced a real traditional homemade holiday as a child and want to do this for your children or grandchildren, or even yourself, this is the cookbook for you! It’s a such a treasure, I just bought a second copy for safekeeping.

A very good book with many terrific recipes. Well put together, interesting and informative. I really like the German heritage because those by and large make up ADVENT and nobody does Advent and Christmas like the Germans. But the author living in the UK includes all things Christmassy from her new home. My only complaint is the green paper used to separate the section is too dark for the black type/font color. The green is Christmas green - dark, forestry, so the color I wish was white, maybe light blue... a contrast to the dark. This did not prevent me from making recipes and reading it. Oh the Christmas drink in the back is really tasty.... but let it steep in the flavors. I like it after about a month in the frig.

Charming book that combines the holiday customs of Germans with well written recipes including both weights and volume measures for most of the ingredients as well as mouth-watering color photographs. The one downside is the black print on a dark green background that introduces each of the 24 chapters. I plan to bake my way through this book for many Advents to come!

I am absolutely delighted with this book. I already have three shelves sagging under the number of Christmas cookbooks in my possession. Some of them have recipes that I go to every year; others are just nice to look at the pictures. This one, because of its attention to the details of the four weeks preceeding Christmas will become one of my go-to volumes. In the near future, I am going to have to cull the number of cookbooks I own (1500), but this one is going with me, wherever I find myself.

For anyone who enjoys Christmas baking and German cake

Magnifique livre et magnifiques recettes de gâteaux de Noël ( teste cette année)! A avoir !

Buenas recetas. Buena fotografía. Ganas de prepararlo TODO esta navidad!!!

Anja’s previous book (Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings) is without doubt our most used recipe book. The pages often stuck together or stained by ingredients over zealously splashed around by children involved in cooking (and over joyous adults too). The recipes are simple and scrummy and so we knew that we’d have to have Advent on our kitchen shelf too.It is beautiful and I know that soon enough its pages will also tell the tales of use and love. If it survives long enough it will surely be passed on as a moving gift when our children one day fly the nest, because it is a gift. Anja writes in a warm way that speaks in the manner of a friend with a coffee next to the oven patiently observing and giving instructions. Tradition and stories are passed on through both the recipes and their accompanying images and words - Anja’s writing has encouraged us to start our own family recipe book of tweaked, loved and made up recipes because it is an inspiration in storytelling and documenting the experience of experimenting and cooking as much as the creation of a finished dish or bake.The illustrations, photography and type come together beautifully in a way that is both heritage and modern all at once. The linocuts are a treasure and I’m tempted to get a book stand purely to display this as an advent calendar (when it isn’t being baked from). The whole thing feels like Christmas in your hands and I’m already looking forward to dark evenings with the glow of candles and scent of spices filling the kitchen.Couldn’t recommend Advent more highly and have already bought a gift copy for a friend who loves Christmas.

My sister recommended this to me - I’d lived in Germany in the Rheinland for a few years, many years ago now, and I was reminiscing about the wonderful ancient German Christmas traditions - the Markets, the food, the 3 Kings - still being maintained (at least they were at the turn of the millennium).I received my copy just in time to make a few recipes as gifts for friends and neighbours where we live now in rural Tasmania. Everything I made was hugely successful - stollen for the church feast, gingerbread, lebkuchen, chocolate potatoes just to give as gifts. The house smelt wonderfully of Christmas spices for days! Next year, I’ll be able to begin earlier and some of the more esoteric (from a rural Tasmanian perspective) treats…I really can’t recommend this book highly enough.