Feeding the New World a Taste of the Old
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“At that time, there was a bakery on every block,” says Helga. “All the immigrants from Germany, Yugoslavia, and Austria were coming over, and my mother realized they were used to light cakes, not the sweet ones the Americans liked.”
Back then, Lutz Cafe was a tiny retail bakery with a handful of authentic tortes and pastries. The recipes came directly from the legendary Cafe Schuler, in Bad Tolz, Germany, where Mariele Lutz had trained. After moving to the U.S., she returned there often to see family and friends, and made a point of visiting the bakery, always asking the owner for some of his recipes for delicious fruit kuchen and Schwarzwalder (Black Forest cake). “Back then you had to be 300 miles away to get those recipes,” recalls Helga. “My mother was already living in America, so the owner gladly translated them for her.”
But it’s the desserts that have garnered Lutz a global reputation–the bakery regularly fields calls from out of state and now ships baked goods and some of the truffles internationally. Brandy mousse, one of the bakery’s signature sweets, is a complex affair: six layers of yellow cake lightly drizzled with brandy and sandwiched between five layers of chocolate mousse. The cake is light, the butter cream is rich, and just as they say, it’s not too sweet. Another Old World creation is the Gugelhupf, a traditional afternoon tea cake. The Lutz version contains lemon zest, white raisins, and almonds to give it some texture.
–Steve Dolinsky
