Renaming Kuchen

West, Michele Ziebarth. "Renaming Kuchen." n.d.

When my son was in high school, the parents of his international boarding school, wanted to put out a cook book as a fund raiser. They asked the students to submit their favorite recipes for consideration. Each recipe would be tested and included, if the organizers liked it.

My son, not a cook, asked for my recipes of his two favorite dishes to submit. One of those was the kuchen recipe I learned while I was in high school, and only made once every year. I had convinced my children it was a special Christmas recipe. The recipe is most definitely kuchen, of the Germans from Russia variety.

The recipe was accepted and is now printed for all to use in the 1993 edition of the Robert Louis Stevenson School's "Cookbook Treasures". The recipe is on page 252 and is entitled "Weinachten Kuchen", also known as "German Christmas Cake".

No one questioned the title except my son, who went to visit Germany the next summer and came back to report, "Mom, 'kuchen' is just cake they have for sale all year long and people eat it every day. It doesn't taste anything like what you make at Christmas!"

Anyway, we still enjoy this recipe once a year at Christmas, which helps my children to really appreicate it's uniqueness! :)

Michele (Ziebarth) West