So in Rocky Start, Coral, a German expat, runs a bakery/coffee shop called Ecstasy. Yes, it’s still called Ecstasy.
At this point in the writing–you all know how things change radically after our first drafts–Coral opens at 7AM and closes at 3PM, and while people drift in all afternoon for pastry and coffee, her big draw is her take on German breakfasts.
So what I need here is feedback from people who eat or have eaten breakfast in Germany, or just want to talk about eating breakfast in Germany, or talk about breakfast in general and why they’d go to a coffee shop for it, or you know, just discuss Coral’s Ecstasy as a community center. . .
Below are the dishes I’ve found after a short (4 sites) google. Please weigh in on as to whether (a) these are actually German breakfast dishes and (b) what you think about them. Thank you.
German Apple Pancake—Dutch Baby with Fresh Apples lll
Bircher Muesli—Overnight Oats Ill
Bauernfrühstück Farmer’s Breakfast llll
Bauernomelett—Farmer’s Omelet ll
Hopple Popple — lll
Senfeier — Eggs in Mustard — lll
Schnecken — Sticky Buns — ll
Franz Buns — l
Apfelkuchen — Apple Cake —ll
Apfelkuchen —Apple Custard Cake —ll
Schwäbischer Zwiebelkuchen —Onion and Bacon Pie
Kartoffelpuffer—Potato Pancakes — ll
Apple cinnamon Kaiserschmarrn l
Zartbitter Heisse Schokolade (Dark Hot Chocolate) ll
Fasnachts!
My grandmother’s parents immigrated from Germany before she was born, and retained some German traditions, so when my mother (very Irish) made fried dough (basically yeast bread dough cut in little squares, the size of doughnut holes, and deep-fried, served with molasses or maple syrup or butter) on Christmas morning, my grandmother declared they were fasnacht kugels. The “kugel” (cake) part of it may be my grandmother’s addition, because a search online just calls them fasnachts, although that technically means “fasting night.”
Alternate spelling is fastnacht (with a T in the middle). https://www.thespruceeats.com/fastnacht-doughnut-recipe-427747 The ones we made were a little smaller, so we dipped them in the molasses, etc., rather than cutting them as these instructions say.
They’re not everyday breakfast foods, but holiday breakfast treats.
Omg! Kartoffelpuffer! I would drive hours to go to a bakery that had those. (Maybe there’s one nearby-ish; I must check.)
Anyway, not in Germany, but in Vienna, Austria; in the winter, street vendors would sell these potato pancakes, and whenever I was there in the winter, I would eat them every day.
They were even better infused with garlic (knoblauch) but maybe save those for later in the day?
The word for whipped cream is something like schlagobbers (spelling) which is so much fun to say, and might be fun on her menu?
Potato pancakes are a staple at fairs and concession stands around here. They are good and we top them with ketchup.
And lots of pretzels. We have a couple of German named hard pretzel companies local to Pa, and lots of soft pretzels as snack foods.
Kartoffel Puffer are not breakfast food — we eat them at dinner or from a stand at the Christmas market or fairs.
Usually eaten with apple sauce (my immediate reaction when I read with ketchup was, oh, barf, but on second thought I can imagine it).
😜
Thanks, Betty!!
Barf to the ketchup on Reiberdatschi (Bavarian wird for kartoffelpuffer) though dd eats this, too.
NOT breakfast!!
Though if this bakery is open until 3pm it could be a Lunch item.
It’s not _only_ breakfast. At my house they’re for anything. Applesauce, yes, but any reasonably tart fruit will do.
So glad I didn’t start reading this post before I’d eaten.
Here in the Middle Rhine area we called them “Reibekuchen” rather than Kartofelpuffer. 😜
Definitely not breakfast.
Schlagobers usually becomes mit schlag. And it is delightful. (Not squirty cream, whipped)
Scrapple. I live in Amish country and Scrapple is inescapable here. I don’t care for it much, not being much of a meat person, but my husband loves it. Especially if it is sliced thin and baked or fried until crispy.
And I was raised by my very German grandmother. Her parents were first generation immigrants who came over and started farming. My experience with her cooking is that it is very simple and heavy. No seasonings. Lots of potato, bread and meat and plain veggie sides.
The best thing that she made was homemade bread every week and fruit pies. Sometimes she would take the bread dough and fry it into donuts, which where delicious, but had to be eaten hot before they deflated. And sometimes she would divide a loaf, roll it with butter, cinnamon and brown sugar and line the bottom of the bread pan with nuts. Killed your teeth, but delicious.
I’m no help here. My mother’s parents were French Canadian. My father’s side immigrated from Germany through Galveston into Texas in 1848, and by the time I knew them, they were thoroughly Texicans. That’s almost like being American. I don’t remember any dish, breakfast, lunch nor dinner, that had a German name or flavor. Maybe the apfel pie?
My friend was in Germany on holiday and the local restaurant gave him Weisswurst for breakfast, white parboiled sausages
Only in Bavaria… 😁
Yeah, we eat this for breakfast 🙂
Served in a porcellaine pot to your table. Served with Süßem Senf and Brezn.
Note: they mustn’t be eaten after noon!!
Also you wouldn’t really serve them in a bakery?
Yep, good hangover cure, they claim 😂
LOL.
Never tested it for that. I have to be careful how any I eat. They come in paires, but for me 2 can be almost too much (I easily feel sick afterwards).
From a visit to Germany, our hotel served lots of salami-like sausages. (Wursts?)
A friend’s husband is German and his family eats chocolate in bread for breakfast. She posted a picture of a grocery store – one aisle for “regular” chocolate, another with breakfast chocolate.
Never heard of this…. Do you remember where it was? Certainly not anywhere where I have lived in Germany, and German hubby hasn’t heard of it either.
(We do, however, like Spain, Mexico, and many countries have bar chocolate that we melt for hot chocolate to drink, but I am assum8ng you mean something else?)
They have breakfast chocolate in Denmark (thin wafers that you put on bread), so maybe closer to the border between the two countries?
Could be! Can’t remember seeing it in Denmark either, but haven’t been there all that often, so I must have missed something good!
In the Netherlands we eat chocolate sprinkles on bread for breakfast. A freshly baked slice of white bread spread with real butter and some chocolate sprinkles on top. Simple but delicious! The bread needs to be fresh and it must be real butter though.
Pain au chocolat is found often in our bakeries but strictly speaking it’s French
Hubby loves chocolate croissants…
I love Wallnussbrötchen – a speciality only sold in whole food stores in Munich (there seems to be only one supplier): a bun made of layers upon layers of nut drenched dough (if this makes sense). You can peel off layer after layer to savour the pleasure of eating even more…
I loved the cheese bread I got in Munich — Käse Brot
Love some käse on kaiserbrot for breakfast too. Or in the tradition of German compound words I would at least try to call this Käsekaiserbrot. Or Butterbreze – a big pretzel sliced in half with an exorbitant amount of butter in. I normally lose weight on holiday but not in Munich!
Hihihi 🙂
My mother was from Germany. Her mother made haferflocken (oats) for breakfast. Since my mother didn’t like oatmeal, her mother would fry the oats in butter and sugar instead. I think that is peculiar to my family though – I haven’t seen it anywhere else. If you google haferflocken recipes there are lots of different ways to cook them.
My mother also made Obstkuchen, a sponge type flan topped with peaches – so good. Even after I married she would make it every year for my birthday. Mom always splashed it liberally with rum before baking. Obstkuchen is made with any kind of fruit, though Mom always used peaches.
And lets not forget Zwetschgenkuchen, a soft dough topped with sliced plums and sugar and baked in the oven. Obstkuchen and Zwetschgenkuchen were not especially made for breakfast but I liked to eat them for breakfast (and at any other time of day).
Zwetschgenkuchen and the other are eaten mid- to late afternoon (“Kaffee und Kuchen”).
We just do Haferflocken (oatmeal) the traditional way, boiled with milk/water. (The kids used to call it “Haferschleim” which means “oat slime” because of the texture 😆)
Seconded.
Cakes are rarely eaton for breakfast, but around 3 or 4 pm the older generation used to have Kaffee und Kuchen (Filterkaffee), with lots of whipped creme (Schlagobers in the South/Austria). Here Coral could serve up a storm of cakes (Kuchen= the “dry” variety vs Torten wirh lots of cream). But the bakery closes a bit early for that.
A short 2alk from our house we have a real old-fashioned Konditorei (pastry shop) run by a couple of older ladies. Looks like it hasn’t changed for decades. And still “draußen nur Kännchen”!)
Same here. Near our flat there’s the “Kuchenmeisterei” (new boss is a very young master baker with an MBA). They sell great cakes and Torten (think black forest cherry). Kid no 2 will do her mandatory internship (1 week in grade 10) there as she LOVES baking.
When I traveled in Germany, the offerings were rarely sugared or even sweet: cheeses, breads (heavy ones) and meats: salami and other processed sausage-like things. Oatmeal, cereals (never sweetened), that kind of stuff. And the Americans always dove into the muesli.
Yes, wheatbuns with honey, homemade marmelade, bacon, salami, chicken salad with mayonnaise, boiled egg, scrambled eggs, cheeses, these are most common in german households for breakfast, but also for bakeries or cafés, which serve breakfast. At least in my experience, born, bred and living in Germany 😎
So not something like a quiche? Mostly individual items?
Quiche is not for breakfast but lunch or dinner.
What makes bakeries special is the huge variety of buns and bread – from very white to while wheat. In more northern regions even “grey” bread (fine!).
There’s always a wide variety if sweet baked goods e.g. Nussschnecken, Rosinensemmeln (soft sweet buns with raisins), Müslisemmeln (with raisins and nuts), Krapfen (kind of fried stuff, called differently in every region, Krapfen in Bavaria), Muffins or Amerikaner.
In Cafés you can get breakfast dishes, more savoury or more sweet or more fruity, often including oats/müsli. Nowadays you also get vegan variants. I’ll write up some examples tomorrow.
My dad was a German Jew who escaped in 1939 and we did eventually travel back there several times (I even got German citizenship to take back what they took from him).
The standard German breakfast in hotels is sliced cheeses and meats, with a variety of rolls, muesli and yogurt, maybe with berries, maybe eggs. Served with butter, jam, mustard. Sometimes herring. Not, generally, sweet stuff . Kaiserschmarrn, which my dad loved, was usually served as a dessert or afternoon pastry not a breakfast food.
Obviously what they serve in buffets is what is convenient in buffets but this is what is served all over Germany.
Wikipedia says Dutch babies are American but may have been derived from pannkuchen. But pannkuchen are savory foods served at lunch or dinner:
https://www.mygermantable.com/homemade-german-pancakes-pfannkuchen-the-perfect-wrap-and-gravy-sponge/
I think of hot chocolate as Viennese not German but I could be wrong.
This is the kind of muesli I think of as German —not Bircher Muesli
https://www.mygermantable.com/muesli-musli/?amp
I see at least two options here :
1) she serves hearty breakfasts based on German breakfasts and does her pastries later
2) she started as an afternoon pastry shop and discovered that we Americans want pastry starting first thing in the morning .
I love bircher muesli, but it’s a recent fashion in the UK that I assumed came from Scandinavia.
I think there’s mileage in the difference between what’s usual in Germany and what kinds of things her American customers prefer – e.g., a lot more sweet stuff for breakfast. Maybe she offers the coffee & cakes from mid morning because (??older) Americans often eat their evening meal bizarrely early? I remember cousins taking us out for dinner at 5.30!!! You couldn’t surely enjoy coffee & cakes at 3.30 if you were going to have a main meal so soon after.
Many American restaurants offer (or used to) Senior Discounts if you ate before six. Like Kids eat Free Tuesdays.
Hotel breakfast fare, except in the places where there are not too many foreign tourists, is not much like what we eat at home — I lived in Brussels for 11 years and would always laugh about the total misconception about Belgian waffles which are not served on a plate with strawberries and whipped cream except in tourist locales. A real Belgian waffle is street food, much more akin to a doughnut, which you buy from a vendor along the street. No fruit, you get a small napkin wrapped around it to carry it. If you are lucky, it’s still hot and usually you can feel the sugar grit between your teeth when chewing.
So, this is our typical breakfast here in Germany: fresh bread rolls (Brötchen) from the bakery (they usually open up at 6:30 in the morning on workdays, 7:00 on weekends). We usually have a variety of cold cuts, such as cooked or air-cured ham (like prosciutto — btw, what people call “Black Forest ham” here in the US would be unrecognizable in the Black Forest or elsewhere in Germany, because in the US it’s cooked ham and in Germany it’s cured), salami, turkey, chicken, etc. Also smoked salmon or trout. Cheeses, both hard cheese (my favorite is a Dutch Maasdammer or Leerdammer) and soft cheeses like brie or camembert. If any eggs, they will generally be soft-boiled. We also have honey, jams, jellies, and some fruit. Yogurt as well. Often Leberwurst (a soft liverwurst which you spread on your Brötchen) or similar (see below). Also Nutella, especially when the grandkids come.
In German “Muesli” is the generic term for cereal, referring to everything from corn flakes to Froot Loops (which, yes, are available in the supermarket here too) to the granola kind of cereal that most Americans associate with “muesli”. Hubby usually puts some on his natural yogurt along with blueberries for breakfast (he only makes himself an egg on Sunday mornings). Hubby also likes to vary his breakfast with hummus, avocado and other spreads.
Another real favorite is raw ground pork as a spread — in Berlin it’s called “Hackepeter”, in the area where I live it’s called “Mett” and you sprinkle it with some salt and cracked pepper and chopped onions. At work, when someone had a birthday (here in Germany, you are the “host” of your birthday celebration), they would often bring breakfast stuff and the “Mett” was a big favorite among the group. I love the stuff.
Also note: very many Germans drink tea for breakfast (both of my German husbands fall into this category, as do the kids — I am the only one who likes coffee for breakfast).
Another note unlike in the US, there is not really a tradition of “going out for breakfast”, most restaurants only open up for the lunchtime service. You will find that some bakeries will have tables and make coffee. They will also have fresh “Brötchen” with cheese or salami for the folks who stop for something on the way to work instead of making their own. When I lived in Berlin there was a great bakery on the way to the subway where I picked up my breakfast (subways and train stations always have a bunch of these).
Hope this helps.
Oh, I do have to add that the idea of “brunch” has gained ground here, so you will find in the bigger cities some restaurants that will do a brunch thing on the weekends, and there you will run across food like breakfast waffles, scrambled eggs, eggs Benedict and similar. But these are basically transplants from abroad.
Also, back to your list above:
1. Zwiebelkuchen (whether Schwäbisch — from the southern German region of Swabia — or not) is not breakfast food. It also is generally seasonal (fall) food — particularly popular in the fall with the new wines.
2. Kaiserschmarrn is a dessert (from Austria).
3. If you order “heiße Schokolade” (“hot chocolate”) you get exactly what you expect when you order hot chocolate in the US — a hot drink. Our grandkids get that for breakfast (but they refer to it as “Kakao”.)
4. The “Dutch Baby” pancake (name here would draw blanks — here either “Eierkuchen” or “Pfannekuchen”), is, as I mentioned in an earlier post, not breakfast fare. We occasionally eat it for a light dinner with apple sauce on top — but you can get it at fairs or the Christmas market rolled up with various fillings such as Nutella (one of the favorites).
5. Never heard of anyone eating Senfeier (mustard eggs) for breakfast. Also never seen them offered for breakfast, but there may be a region where this is the case.
6. Apfelkuchen, just like Zwetschenkuchen, is for late afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen, not breakfast…
7. Never heard of Franz buns, but Schnecken (“snails” — like flatten cinnamon rolls, sometimes with poppyseed) are often picked up for breakfast. My favorite of this type is “Streuseltaler” — “streusel coin” (large flat round sweet rolls with streusel topping and some sugar glaze).
Not sure if this helps, or makes things messier. Our local bakeries (I have 3 within walking distance) each offer a large variety of fresh breakfast rolls and breads and other baked goods (none on your list) starting, as I mentioned above, about 6:30 in the morning. Those form the backbone of our breakfasts.
Okay, let’s reverse engineer this.
Tell me, GCB, what does Coral serve in her bakery for breakfast?
Coffee, tea, and hot chocolate.
Schnecken
And . . .
And thank you very much.
Well, this is what I thought about after I tsunami’d you with info…and realized I didn’t really need to deluge you with stuff. (Sorry, started typing without thinking.)
What your character will be smart enough to do is to take stuff she knows from her old homeland and “repurpose” it for her new homeland. So, taking Belgian waffles as an example. They are basically street food, eaten like a donut, but when Brussels was the. home of the World’s Fair way back in the early 20th century, vendors came up with the idea to serve them on a plate with strawberries and whipped creme to the international visitors. Those who were used to the idea of waffles as a breakfast food took that home with them, thinking it’s typically Belgian (and many will argue that because they have had that as hotel food, that means it’s “typical”, but is really a reflection of giving the market what it wants).
So stuff that in German would be eaten during other times of the day than breakfast, but which the American market would accept as breakfast food would be served by a smart businesswoman to those folks. Who wouldn’t know the difference but would appreciate the good food.
In other words, pick some stuff that would make sense from who she’s selling to. Your character could take a number of the things on your list and market them as “breakfast” fare.
(I have had American visitors who have come by after spending time in Germany, saying they couldn’t wait to get home to “real” breakfast of eggs and bacon and pancakes, instead of bread and cheese and cold cuts. They couldn’t get away from a real German breakfast fast enough.)
So, yeah, have her serve Pfannekuchen and other stuff, because the American market is used to similar things for breakfast. No need for her to duplicate the German breakfast, just add some elements in. Lots of different baked goods could probably work (I’ll try to think of a list that would work for the US market). Pfannekuchen (egg pancakes) with various toppings (applesauce, jam, Nutella, honey) would be a good thing, even if it isn’t part of a German breakfast.
(Plus: it’s hard to get really good bread in the US, mostly because they pack it in plastic bags, thus making the crusts soft/soggy. And most people in the US prefer it that way, but we like it crusty.)
Jenny, if it helps: Germsny is VERY varied.
What GCC said, is correct, though here in the South of Getmany, we do go out to breakfast for special occasions AND not early at breakfast time but around 20 am or later (my parents love it e.g. after doctor appointments).
Here most cafes offer “breakfast” (from late morning to early afternoon).
Yes, drinking tea for breakfast is very common, the older generation drinks Filterkaffee, we don’t as we prefer Italian espresso (far easier on the stomach).
We never ate sausages ir ham or cold cuts for breakfast but jam and honey on our buns or slices if bread. This might also be a more Southern thing. My grandma as well as my mom took/take great pridd in himemade very delicious jam made from fruit grown in our garden.
As a whole I second what GCC said: Coral wouldn’t offer the traditional breakfast but what be considered German i.e. what would sell. Our bread and buns are very fine, not soft but with crunchy shells and yummy insides. “Belegte Semmeln/Brötchen” (not quite like subways) are a staple in bakeries, too: it’s a take away lunch (my usual lunch on weekdays at the office): cold cuts, pickled small cucumber, salad or cheese, tomato, salad, or hardboiled egg, Mayo etc). Southern speciality: Leberkässemmel (slices of warm Leberkäs) with either ketchup or sweet mustard.
Franz buns btw are Franzbrötchen, originally from Hamburg iirc. VERY delicious sweet stuff with lots of cinnamon.
And: hot chocolate with a cuppola of whipped cream iis a staple wherever breakfast is served.
In summer you usually get the cold variety with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream on top. Or cold coffee with a scoop vanilla ice cream and ehipped cream. It’s NOT iced coffee.
And usually served as refreshment later in the morning to late afternoon.
I want to go to Germany and eat now.
The “late” breakfast is often called “zweites Frühstück” (“second breakfast”) here. People often just have something light and quick early and then eat something more substantial a bit later. For example, school kids have a break around 9:30 where they eat something as their second breakfast (a roll with cheese or some fruit or something). This coincides with the timing that Dodo describes..
And Dodo is right, lots and lots of variation among the regions and also families as to their preferences. My ties are strongest in Berlin, Rhineland and Ruhr Valley, although have some family connections in the south too.
The wall of brötchen, especially the seeded ones. That would be a treat. That – along with cheese from the cheesemonger – what I remember from breakfast in the village I lived in as a postdoc.
The baker could do some rotation of types.
And I’m going to go start at batch of sonnenblumen brötchen, which I can’t get here.
Jenny,
getting back to your question what Coral could serve – and how: in our cafés (in some backeries they also serve a small menu of things to eat, but focus on selling bread, pastries, buns, cakes, also savory pastry etc) one usually gets offered a selection “Frühstück”: see some examples from our nearby eating spot ranging from basic smallish breakfast choices to elaborate (including what they are called and prizes in euro) – this might not work for you/Carol, but some might meet her clients’ expectations:
FRÜHSTÜCK PARIS: 2 Croissants | Butter | Nutella or honey| Konfitüre=Jam
6,50
Exchange the Croissants and you get the plain old German style breakfast with 2 buns (which could either be simple Kaisersemmeln or those with seeds like Mohnsemmeln, Sonnenblumen etc. – they are more yummy than the plain white kind).
the savory kind – typical for the South of Germany:
MÜNCHEN: 2 Münchner Weißwürst /typical white sausages| 1 Brezn (important: no-one says Pretzel in Germany)| sweet mustard
7,50
the following two are basically what many Germans would eat for breakfast, see GCC’s comments:
ERDING: Selection of cold cuts of sausages/ham and cheese | Kalbsleberwurst | soft boiled egg | Konfitüre=Jam | Butter | selection of breat and buns
12,90
BERN: selection of cheese slices and Brie | soft boiled egg| grapes | honey | Butter | selection of breat and buns
7,90
PRAG: cuts of cooked ham | soft boiled egg | Konfitüre/jam | Butter | selection of breat and buns
7,90
Our eating spot serves many more breakfast dishes but those are more international (Italian-/Maroccan-/American-/British-/Danish- and Spanish-Style).
These days you’ll also find vegetarian and vegan options with lots of joghurt, fruit, Haferflocken (oats) etc. which Coral’s clients would probably not expect.
Btw:
We also have “Brotzeit”, i.e. a hearty in-between “tea” (for those who eat lunch at noon) around 3-4 pm: this consists basically of cold cuts or cheese and, yes again, all sorts of break – either slices of bread or buns
The muesli only.
they eat bread with chocolate or with cheese
Otherwise, a Berliner or similar pastries
The things in your list will be mainly for tourists, brunch or late afternoon.
Only if by “chocolate” you actually mean Nutella (a chocolate-flavored hazelnut spread), we don’t eat (candy) chocolate on our breakfast breads.
I think that looking for things that actual Germans eat for their actual breakfasts is not the way to go, because Coral is selling things to Americans. Delicacies that people would have with coffee sound to me like the way to go, and if you want her to go all genuine and capital-E ethnic, she could also sell Roggenbrot. But probably not the big solid echt-German loaves — more likely (at an American bakery) as rolls.
(Just my 2 cents, though…) 🙂
That’s a good point.
Yeah, agree with jinx, and just made that point in my last post above — she should sell what an American would see as breakfast stuff, which opens up the field for you.
I think this is considered more lunch than breakfast, but I have fond memories of ordering “Strammer Max” (toast with ham and a fried egg) in the autobahn raststätten (motorway service area) for breakfast in the 1990s…
Yeah, Strammer Max would work as an acceptable breakfast offering for American audiences.
I have been following Beryl Shereshewsky on you tube for years and she does fantastic collaborations on food with everyday people around the world, and she is just worth a watch and the ideas and combinations of food has o-need my mind up to many recipes I never thought possible. But she is really good on variety and there a a handful of German based foods that might help you out. Here is a link to one of her videos with one of the dishes being German, https://youtu.be/5dsCclEg-08
-I highly recommend just watching any of her videos. Cheers
There is a town up in the mountains here in Washington that is a “Bavarian” village called Leavenworth. I looked at bakeries there to see what they offered and found pretzels, pastries, and breads. I was just curious what a German style bakery would have up in the U.S. because I think Ecstasy would probably be an American’s idea of a German bakery even if some of the recipes were old family favorites. Although Coral seems like she might do things to suit herself so you could make a case for anything she wanted to serve.
Jenny, since you are moving to Pa, you might want to look into the Kriskindl market in Middleburg. I think that you said that you were moving to the southern part?
Anyway, it happens in the end of November or early December every year and is billed as one of the largest German style Christmas markets around. Lots of food. You know, for research.
We used to visit the German Christmas Market in Leeds each year, and ear cheesy garlic bread for a late breakfast, followed by potato pancakes with ketchup. Not so much because it was traditional but because it was delicious and available!
Reading through this, while on a low carb diet, is making me very glad that I didn’t read it before I had breakfast 😂
It all sounds delicious.
Alternatively, how important is it to the story the Coral be German? Could she be Swedish? Because Swedish cardamom buns are magnificent, and most expat Swedish bakeries will offer a cinnamon version as well. Then there’s Swedish crisp bread with a variety of what in the US would be bagel toppings.
That said, it’s probably vital that Cora be German, so the above will be completely irrelevant.
Or Swiss German? In which case you could have gipfeli, which are akin to croissants, so friendly to many international markets, and bircher muesli.
Bob made Coral German, and he’s done several throwaway lines about it, so I think she’s German.
We have a huge amount of regional pastries one can get addicted to: it’s easy to pop into a bakery, get a “Auszog’ne” (Schmalzgebäck, fried pastry) or a Apfteltasche (pastry filled with applemush), Nussschnecke etc. to eat it on the go, or sitting down with a nice cup of coffee/tea, hot chocolate or lemonade. Apart what has been said here about German breakfast, my son would argue he eats all those sweet stuff (and cake if his sister made some) anytime, be it at breakfast, lunch, tea whatever 😉
I’m with your son. 😉
My meals are very whatever.
I think you should look for a German-style bakery near your new home & do some in-depth research. I remember an old Barbara Michael’s novel set there, which explained to me that Pennsylvania Dutch = German, in fact, so I’m hopeful for you.
Barbara Michaels. Sorry.
We have a tasty, Americanized German bakery near us—here’s the menu for inspiration: https://www.estherskitchenbeergarden.com/?location=11ec8b131a15a9a9a7d5ac1f6bbba828&menu=#3
(Hope the link works!)
Well, this is fortuitous. My favorite YouTube baking channel just came out with a very tasty looking recipe for German plum cake, https://youtu.be/PB69DY0h-2k
As others have said, it may not be eaten for breakfast in Germany, but a good baker/shopkeeper will use the recipes she knows or can adapt to sell the customers what they want, when they want it.
I love Bircher muesli. Especially with grated apple. It makes me feel virtuous when I eat it. As if I’m doing something extra healthy.
Did Coral grow up in East or West Germany? While now she has all the ingredients available, that might have affected what she learnt, and what she ate as a child.
My bff is an American ex-pat living in Germany (so kind of the opposite of your character but definitely a pro at recognizing German foods for American tastes) and when I went to visit her the breakfast pastry she was most excited to take me to get was a Franzbrötchen. It’s like if a croissant and a cinnamon roll had a baby and I still dream about it! It’s associated with Hamburg, but it sounded like you could get them all over the north.