“Chocolate and vanilla in desserts in upscale restaurants are indispensable,” says the Austrian Hotel Klosterbräu. Unfortunately, these popular ingredients don’t grow here. So we wanted to know how pastry chefs in sustainable accommodations are coping with (or avoid) this problem, and which delicious patisserie you can enjoy with a clear conscience. Some of them even gave us the recipes!
Vanilla & Cocoa – what’s the problem?
Eighty percent of vanilla comes from Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world. The country gained independence from French colonial rule in 1960 and is still considered a developing country. The eastern island of La Réunion, formerly called Île Bourbon, is still part of France. The famous Bourbon vanilla comes from there. In 1841, an enslaved plantation worker on Île Bourbon discovered the secret of hand pollination, and to this day, vanilla is still hand pollinated in Madagascar, La Réunion & the Comoros (the only three growing regions for Bourbon vanilla) – there are no vanilla pollinating bees or hummingbirds to do the job in other latitudes.
According to UNICEF, thousands of children work on vanilla plantations. If you buy vanilla from Madagascar, make sure it is Fair Trade vanilla. Even though child labor is banned in Madagascar, you can only rely on products with a label that guarantees that the vanilla was grown without child labor and with fair wages and working rights. The available labels are Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance (e.g. Biovegan) and Hand-in-Hand (Rapunzel). Unfortunately, fair-trade vanilla is far less common than fair-trade chocolate.
“We use real vanilla beans, which we process (grind) completely because we need fewer pods,” says Hotel Klosterbräu. Even if you can’t do without it, you can at least use it sparingly and consciously.
Fair and inclusive
At the Green City Hotel Vauban in the German City of Freiburg, it is important to the owners that working conditions are improved not only in the producing developing countries, but also in Germany. The integrative business employs people with mental and physical disabilities and tries to find suppliers who also work in an integrative way. The coffee, for example, comes from the integrative Kaffeewerk Zollernalb.
Baking with Fair Trade Ingredients
The Eco-Hotel Okelmann’s in Lower Saxony also has its own café, where a wide variety of cakes, tarts, cookies and pastries are offered daily. “We buy chocolate, vanilla, etc. exclusively in fair trade organic quality,” reports the eco-hotel. “Especially popular are our raspberry meringue cake and Frankfurter Kranz, which our mother Annegret prepares according to Grandma’s recipe.
Frankfurter Kranz is a German classic made with vanilla pudding cream. The sponge is topped with vanilla sugar and topped with hazelnut brittle and currants.
By the way, the German currant season has just begun! It lasts from June to August.
In the SCHWARZWALD PANORAMA, the classic Black Forest cake has been transformed into a dessert in a jar under the motto “Cake with a difference”. “Presently, our guests love our apple strudel “Reloaded” with ice cream and vanilla sauce,” says the Black Forest hotel. And they even gave us the recipe.
Apple strudel “Reloaded” with ice cream and vanilla sauce
Equipment
- 1 ice machine
Ingredients
pastry
- 10,6 oz Wheat-Flower organic
- 0,63 cup Water
- 2 tbsp oil organic
- 1/2 tsp salt
- oil or butter to spread the dough
apple filling
- 1,5 kg (6,34 cups) mixed, regional apples organic
- Cinnamon & Sugar
- cornstarch
- 3 cups White wine organic
- 1 lemon organic
Vanilla sauce
- 0,53 cup Whole milk organic
- 0,53 cup cream organic
- 1 Vanilla pod (organic & fair trade)
- 0,88 oz sugar
- 3 egg yolk
Vanilla Icecream
- 10 egg yolk organic
- 9,92 oz sugar
- 3 Vanilla pod (organic & fair trade)
- 29,38 oz milk organic
- 5,89 oz cream organic
- salt
Instructions
pastry
- Cut the dough into 1 x 2 inch sheets and bake in the oven.
apple filling
- Peel and dice the apples. Boil white wine. Bind the lemon zest and juice with sugar, cinnamon and starch. Add apples and bring to a boil.
Vanilla sauce
- Mix everything. Boil in a water bath and peel off the rose.
Vanilla Icecream
- Beat the egg yolks, sugar and salt until fluffy. Heat milk & cream. Stir the egg mixture into the liquid and heat to 75 degrees. Let cool and then put in the ice cream maker.
Apples are an everlasting trend in hotel catering
In 1827, apple strudel was first mentioned in Anna Dorn’s “Great Viennese Cookbook”. To this day, Austrians are proud of their apples in pastry.
Gut Guntrams near Vienna has even established a foundation, the Guntrams Ark, to preserve rare varieties of fruit. In addition to the exceptional vacation accommodations, rare apple varieties such as Adams Parmäne, Berner Rosenapfel, and Cox Pomona are now cultivated. “On weekends, our dessert display case is well filled,” reports the Gut Guntrams team. Empress Zita lemon tart and fruit crumble cake are particularly popular. “Our pastry chef, Yannis Brix, also bakes wedding and birthday cakes to order.
Apples from the Alte Land
The Alte Land is one of the most famous fruit growing areas in Germany. Apples have been cultivated here since 1312. This is where Lifestyle Hotel SAND gets the apples for its homemade apple marzipan cake. Other regional ingredients include Lübeck marzipan and eggs from the local village Ahrensbök. It is also important to the Lifestyle Hotel not to use palm oil in the patisserie. The sweet pancakes are filled with palm oil-free CAY hazelnut milk cream. If you like, you can also enjoy the treats on the roof terrace with a view of the Baltic Sea.
“Although we think of the apple as a common product, we have an apple dessert that will surprise you with its taste, aesthetics and healthy specificity,” promises Paradiso Pure.Living on the Alpe di Siusi in South Tyrol. The hotel is the first vegetarian/vegan hotel in the Dolomites. The patisserie on the desert menu reflects the vegan concept and is based on organic ingredients. The famous apple dessert was invented by vegan pastry chef Grazie Bianchi and consists of gluten-free, vegan buckwheat cookies and sugar-free apple sauce. The colors red, yellow, and green, as well as the shape of the dessert, are reminiscent of Tyrolean apples, and the buckwheat is another regional product.
Did you know: Apples grow in many countries around the world, except in the tropics. This is because they don’t like the constant rain.
If the apple is native to your country, we have another apple recipe for you from the hotel gastronomy. STURM in the Biosphere Reserve Rhön revealed it to us. The sustainable hotel uses only organic products and focuses on seasonality and regionality. “But vanilla and chocolate are also a must from time to time,” admit the owners. In addition to the organic seal, they also look for the Fair Trade logo.
Apple crumble (vegan) recipe from STURM
Ingredients
- 1 kg apples
Crumble dough for approx. 1 kg of apples
- 5,6 oz flower organic
- 3,2 oz sugar organic
- Salt
- 3,5 oz vegetable margarine organic
Instructions
Apples
- Cut the apples into small quarters and let them steep with cinnamon, some sugar and lemon juice.
Crumble dough
- Mix all ingredients and knead into a dough.
- Spread over the apples and bake in the oven at 200 degrees (390°F) for about 20 minutes.
“This goes perfectly with a fresh, homemade sorbet,” the STURM adds, immediately revealing another recipe of its own:
Berry sorbet (vegan) recipe
Equipment
- 1 blender
Ingredients
- 17,5 oz frozen berries organic
- 6 oz sugar
- 1/" Lemon Juice of it
- mint for decoration
Instructions
- Mix all the ingredients in the blender and serve immediately.
- Fresh mint is ideal as a decoration.
Optional
- If you like it creamier, add some plant-based yoghurt.
Baking with spelt flour
In addition to the use of regional organic ingredients and local fruit, we also spotted the use of spelt flour as a baking trend.
Spelt is an ancient grain that has been cultivated since the Middle Ages. Compared to wheat, it has the ecological advantage of using less fertilizers and pesticides because of its hard husk. It is rich in folic acid and protein. How healthy it is, however, depends mostly on whether you choose the whole grain variety!
“We always bake with spelt flour,” says the HUBERTUS Mountain Refugio Allgäu. The sustainable wellness hotel in the foothills of the Alps treats its guests with homemade cakes every day. “Our guests like the homemade strudel with fruit filling best,” they say. The HUBERTUS Mountain Refugio Allgäu is certified organic and a Bioland partner.
The Bavarian Berghotel Rehlegg does not use wheat flour or white sugar at all. The hotel obtains 90% of its ingredients directly from the region. Only what is “healthy, fresh and not tortured” makes it onto the plate. Pastry chef Franziska is responsible for the patisserie. “She has a knack for sweet treats,” reports Berghotel. “There are vegan desserts every day – they are so delicious that they are not only popular with vegans.”
Cake event at the nature reserve
By the way, if you ever want to book the upscale patisserie for your private party, Gut Sonnenhausen near Munich is the place to do it. The sustainably converted estate uses 100 percent organic ingredients for its cakes and pastries, many of which come from its own garden or from its partner farm, Hermannsdorfer Landwerkstätten. Not only do you get a sustainable cake table, but you get to spend a relaxing cake afternoon in nature with your guests.
Sunday afternoon is cake time
“Cake time” on Sunday afternoons at 3 pm is typical of the culture in German-speaking countries. This was the case with my grandmother, whose family owned a café on the Bingsdorfer Höhe in the Czech Republic. Every Sunday, trays of plum and apple pies were baked for the excursionists. Later, in Germany, we grandchildren came to eat cake on Sundays, and so it was with all relatives, until it got a bit blurred in my generation and you can even eat cake for brunch 🙂 .
In Italy, a pastry shop is called a pasticceria
Italians, on the other hand, are allowed to eat sweets even for breakfast! The classic Italian first breakfast (before the second breakfast) consists of coffee and sweet pastries. Piera, from the Ligurian town of Borgomaro, is a passionate pastry chef at the Relais del Maro. The family-run hotel is an “Albergo Diffuso“, where accommodations are scattered throughout the village. After breakfast, of course, you can enjoy Piera’s Italian pastries. The “everyone’s favorite” is the hazelnut cake. The pastries are also available in gluten-free and vegan versions.
French patisserie in Thailand
Thailand also has a sweet breakfast option. It’s called Khao Neow Sang Kaya, and it’s made with sticky rice and coconut milk. If this is too exotic for you, you can experience a real surprise as a European at Keemala in Phuket. Here you will find original French croissants for breakfast! Golden brown and crispy on the outside, soft and tender on the inside. “We use organic milk and import butter and flour specially from France,” says the resort.
It takes four days for the 28-fold dough to be ready and placed in the oven at just the right temperature. “We serve our perfect croissants with cold cuts, fresh fruit and cream. Together, it makes for a heavenly breakfast experience!” It’s not regional, of course, so the sustainability aspects here refer only to Keemala’s organic label and zero-waste policy.
Sweet tortillas in Croatia
At the Eco-Aparthotel THE DREAMERS’ CLUB in Croatia, you will also find a sweet dish that is not really typical of the country: homemade tortillas! “For guilt-free indulgence, we offer an organic vegan chocolate spread or a healthy mix of fresh strawberries, bananas and local honey, guaranteed to satisfy any sweet tooth,” the eco-apartment hotel reports. “Our orange marmalade from our garden is another great option.”
A sweet spread can sometimes be just as good as pastries or cakes, don’t you think? Finally, let’s recap the green rules for sustainable patisserie:
- Use local, organic products (organically grown flour, sugar, eggs, butter).
- Spelt flour can be a good change and requires less pesticides to grow than wheat flour. Whole grain is healthier.
- Use local organic fruit in season.
- Look for the Fair Trade label on vanilla and chocolate.
Finally, don’t forget to share – it’s good for relationships and your figure 🙂
Save this article for your next Sunday coffee table!
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