Chocolate cupcakes made with “hot cake” mix (pancake mix) and dried fruit such as orange peel and/or lemon peel. You can also make them with nuts such as walnuts, almonds, pine nuts and/or peanuts.

Swiss style cake. Kouglof (French) is called “kugelhopf” in German. Kouglof cakes are quite common throughout Europe, and they can be made with yeast batter, pound cake batter or sponge cake batter. If you prefer, you can cover the inner surface of the mold with almond slices before pouring in the batter.

German style cakes with rum-soaked raisins. Small bags of ready-made rum-soaked raisins are commonly sold at discount stores. If they are not available, here’s what you can do: chop raisins, soak them in a small amount of sugar syrup/rum mixture and knead. When baked, brush with marmalade and top with Christmas decorations.

Belgian style chocolate cakes. Use strong coffee for the syrup, and choose small cups or molds for this recipe.

German style traditional baked confectionery made with sautéed apples wrapped in a pie crust. Add a small amount of lemon juice to the apple filling to complement the sour flavor, then also add a little cinnamon for flavor.

Italian style cake. Jonathan apples (Kougyoku) are best for this recipe this season, however, if they are not available, you can use other hard-flesh apples such as Fuji. The caramelized apples are the key to making a delicious cake. Heat sugar and butter in a frying pan until the mixture turns brown, then add apple slices and mix.

Swiss style cheese soufflé. By adding meringue to cheese batter, you will have a light, airy soufflé. For an even lighter texture, you can substitute flour with cornstarch.

Austrian style pound cake with marmalade and mixed dried fruit. “Obst” means “fruit” in German. Ready-made mixed dried fruit is used in this recipe, but traditionally, this cake is made with orange peel and/or lemon peel. If you prefer, you can use 100g of orange peel and/or lemon peel instead of mixed dried fruit.

Belgian style cakes. Beat egg whites until stiff, then alternately mix the meringue and flour together in several additions. When baked, brush with the syrup while the cakes are still hot.

Belgian style chocolate walnut torte with a rich chocolate and nut flavor. By roasting the nuts, you can enhance the nutty aroma.

German style cake made of an almond powder batter, topped with sliced almonds. In this recipe, we use 20g of almond powder for the batter, but you can increase the amount up to 50g. Note that the total amount of flour plus almond powder should always be 100g, for instance, if you are using 50g of almond powder, reduce the amount of flour to 50g.

Italian style cake. “Pan di Spagna” means sponge cake in Italian. To make this type of cake, you can either beat egg yolks and whites separately, or you can beat whole eggs. We use the latter method in this recipe. This is a fairly standard sponge cake recipe using butter.