Erdebeerzeit

June 10, 2025

Strawberry Time Nostalgia Sets In

As we rolled through Germany in the middle of May, we ran into strawberry season - which hits one month earlier than here on Vancouver Island. In the season little strawberry shaped kiosks pop up in Germany, selling of course strawberries. The kiosks generally look like this:

And in the bakeries we then find erdebeeren schnitte - strawberry slices. Erdbeere is a word that is easy to translate, referring as it does to an "earth" berry, similar to our "straw" berry. The erdebeeren schnitte is nothing more than our strawberry shortcake, but it has some German touches. The cake bit is firmer than ours, there is a custard layer under the strawberries, and the berries are covered in a gelatin glaze. For some reason I decided that I love these, and a search of our blogs reveals me ranting about such schnitte even ten years ago, cycling in Germany, in Spring.

This year was no exception, as we saw the Grampies outside a bakery in Oschenfurt, ramping up the erdbeere research once again.

Well that was then, and now we are back in Canada, and it is strawberry time here at last. But this does not mean we will meekly buy the shortcake offered at the grocery beside the strawberry display, get some Dream Whip, and have at it. First off, we grow our own strawberries and now more than ever will not touch those tasteless California specimens in the supermarket display. But next, simple as it may be, the German version of the whole thing is worth trying to re-create.

I put the problem to Youtube, and came up with a number of German productions, purporting to lead me through the simple steps. Simple as it may be, it's quite a struggle for us to follow the German narration. There are also some sort of special ingredients, which are not readily available over here. "Tortenguss" is the glaze that goes over the strawberries, and Dr. Oetker vanilla pudding is probably the custard layer. And there are some tricks, like using "sprudelwasser" (soda water) in the batter, and having a rectangular spring form pan to bake in.

I was proud of learning these new German words, "tortenguss" and "sprudelwasser" and tried these out on our 1/2 German friend, Erika Paxman, as we brought our schnitte version over for a show and tell. Not only had Erika heard of "tortenguss", but she pulled out an "official" packet, which she of course had on hand. (I can easily get excited on finding out stuff that everybody knows.)

My "Canadian" Dr. Oetker pudding, and Erika's German tortenguss.

The Paxmans declared the schnitte to be very good, but of course they are extremely kind and polite folks. The rather tougher Dodie seemed to agree, so I was happy, and geared up for the ultimate test - our 100% German friend Sandra.

The blog entry from Germany, which we reviewed at Erika's to set the schnitte scene. Also pictured is our Canadian clone attempt.

Sandra came over the next day with eight month old Ferdinand. We discussed Ferdinand's qualifications for this trial. Both his parents are German, but he is learning 1/2 in German and 1/2 in English. We tried him out on our Dr. Oetker's vanilla pudding, and he declared it a winner!

The youngest member of our panel of judges.

Given Ferdinand's relative inexperience with schnitte, or solid food of any type, for that matter, we turned to Sandra.

Sandra is focussed on Ferdinand's reaction.

Sandra rather liked the schnitte, but she did point out that the approach differs somewhat between her native eastern Germany, and our rather western take. Or at least, our schnitte differs from that which she grew up on - from her grandmother. Grandmother's version had a much thinner base, and was made in a circular pan, not the rectangular spring form that we had gone to a lot of trouble to source. And Sandra had some documentary evidence, which sat right in my hand, as I showed off Erika's Tortenguss packet that she had given us. Let's look at that darn packet again:

Despite this, Sandra did give a provisional pass to our schnitte. Given that, we will make another one next week, when cyclist friends Manni, Kristin, and 6 year old Matti are coming to visit, from Austria. We might even go crazy then and attempt some wiener schnitzel. Admittedly, trying to replicate these German foods is not necessary. Visitors from abroad, or even Sandra and Ferdinand, probably prefer to have Canadian "local" food to some lame attempt to that of another country. So Manni et al can also expect bagels, pancakes and bacon with maple syrup, and wild salmon. How boring!

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