A Study on the Evolution of Baumkuchen as seen through an Examination of Fritz Hahn’s “Die Familie der Baumkuchen”

Abstract

“Die Familie der Baumkuchen (The Baumkuchen Family)” is a pioneering treatise on the evolution of Baumkuchen, written by Fritz Hahn in 1964. In this paper, Hahn traced the origins of Baumkuchen back to a method of baking over direct heat by rotating a cylindrical spit, and divided the evolution of Baumkuchen into five phases, from Ancient Greece to the first half of the 18th century when Baumkuchen was perfected as a form of confectionary. However, in his study, he focused only on changes in the forms of the batter and failed to mention recipes that existed from the 16th century onward. This paper closely examines the typical recipes for spit-baked confectionary developed from the 16th to 18th centuries and reconsiders the evolutional process of Baumkuchen in light of these new findings.