Bread, traditional pastries and sweet titbits

In old times, every convent used to have a bakery. Being self-sufficient, convents produced everything they needed themselves: bread, cakes, pastries and biscuits. For the holiday seasons in particular, every convent bakery always had their own specialities in store to give life some sweetness.
Author Petra Altmann lets you take a glimpse behind the monastery walls, while also telling many stories of how some of these rarities were invented. In the appendix, recipes directly from the Cistercian convent of nuns at Gessertshausen, which have never been published before, show you how to draw these delicious creations out of your own oven at home.

• Delicious breads and pastries from the convent oven for all seasons
• Cakes and biscuits for Advent
• Christmas Season bakery: biscuits, gingerbread, Stollen and
• Christmas cakes
• Baking for Lent
• Easter: lambs, buns and Easter bread
• Specials for Pentecost
• Light titbits for summer

First Published: August 2009