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B E R L I N
honey at the weekly markets on
Maybachufer and Boxhagener Platz
and at Mauerpark on Sundays
Keeping Berlin sweet
BONBONMACHERE I
In a basement inMitte,
confectioner Hjalmar Stecher
makes colourful sweets harking
back to Berlin’s golden 20s. And
right now he needs to get a move
on. He’s kneading 7kg of bright
blue dough with his bare hands.
He’s got 10minutes until the
melted sugar mass begins to
harden. He quickly adds some
citric acid and throws in a glass
of Slivovitz, then runs the sugary
concoction through a 100-year-
old press. Small blue sweets fall
out of the other side.
Confectioner – it’s every kid’s
dream job, or so you’d think. Yet
confectionery-making is
actually a dying profession in
Germany. Stecher and his
partner Katja Kolbe learnt the
rare craft at a Berlin sweet
factory that no longer exists.
All that survives from those
days are some recipes and the
heavy old confectionery roller
press that Stecher uses to make
traditional Berlin sweets. The
confectioner puts the blue drops
into a machine that looks like a
concrete mixer and pours warm
sugar water over them. As the
water evaporates, he covers the
rotating sweets in a soft white
layer of sugar. The “Bosnian
plums”, as they’re called, are
ready. For the next batch,
Stecher uses green dough and a
different roller press. That’s
because the Berlin
Bonbonmacherei sells 40
different varieties of sweets in
different colours and shapes.
The bestsellers are the green
Waldmeister sweets, a Berlin
classic popular among the city’s
bohemians of the 1920s, with the
herby flavour of leaves from the
woodruff tree. They’re still made
in exactly the same shape and
flavour. Ditto another traditional
Berlin sweet, the raspberry drop.
Stecher’s own sugary inventions
include sweets flavoured with
piña colada and fiery raspberry
with chilli.
Bonbonmacherei, Heckmann
Höfe, Oranienburger Straße 32, 10117
Berlin, www.bonbonmacherei.de.
100g of sweets, €1.75. Open
Wednesday – Saturday, midday –
8pm. Watch sweets being made
every day from 2pm
Berliner Waldmeister,
nostalgische Bonbons
Berlin’s classic
Waldmeister sweets are
still a bestseller
from this butcher’s on Karl Marx
Platz in Rixdorf because it was
rich, tasty and cheap. It is still
all those things, but since
ThuringianMarcus Benser took
over the business and fine-tuned
his predecessor’s 100-year-old
recipe, it has a rather smarter
clientele.
Customers now include
celebrated chef KoljaKleeberg
fromVau,MarcoMüller fromthe
Weinbar Rutz and Jan-Göran
Barth, personal chef to the
German president. According to
Blutwurstmanufakturmanager
MathiasHelfert, Barth likes to
stock up onmini black puddings
for receptions at Schloss Bellevue.
The key to the sausage’s
success lies in its secret herb
recipe, which Benser inherited
from his grandfather.
Ingredients include Thuringian
marjoram, thyme, cinnamon
and Brazilian pepper, mixed
with onion,
speck
(fatty bacon),
pork rind, breadcrumbs and, of
course, lots of fresh pig’s blood.
Benser’s recipe has earned him
a place in the Champions
League of black pudding
butchers. Seven years ago he
was voted “a knight of the black
pudding” by the Confrérie des
Chevaliers du Goûte Boudin, a
brotherhood of black pudding
makers in France.
Benser’s interpretation of
Tote Oma, warm black pudding
served withmashed potato, is
delicious, and his sausages don’t
look bad either. Unlike other
black puddings from lesser
purveyors, the Benser variety
don’t turn into a bloody pulp
when they’re cooked, making
them a firm favourite among
Berlin’s Blutwurst fans.
Blutwurstmanufaktur GmbH,
Karl Marx Platz 9-11, 12043 Berlin,
www.blutwurstmanufaktur.de.
1kg Berliner black pudding, €9.90.
Open Monday – Friday, 8am–6pm,
Saturday, 8am–1pm
A taste of honey
KAI SER HONIG
In a former slaughterhouse in
Tempelhof, south Berlin,
Kristian Kaiser mixes South
American, Asian and the
Middle Eastern flavourings
with high-quality honey and
north German milk to make his
version of
dulce de leche
, the
traditional South American way
of preserving milk by cooking it
with sugar.
During a trip to Peru three
years ago, the trained beekeeper
tasted the sweet cream for the
first time, and thought the
recipe would also work with
honey. Up until that point, he’d
been mixing 10 different types
of scented honey, but they
weren’t exactly flying off the
shelves. If he was lucky, Kaiser
could sell up to 100 jars a day at
the busy Sunday flea market at
Mauerpark. By contrast, dulce
de leche, which he describes as
“South American Nutella”, was
a hit from the off. He can easily
sell up to 500 jars in a day.
The product “tastes like
Berlin”, says Kaiser. Foreigners
make up 25% of the city’s
population and the aromas of
the various cultures’ cooking
give him new ideas for his
daring honey and spice
creations. He unscrews
another jar, with the word Chai
on the label, a sweet paste
containing flavourings of
cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg,
cloves and warmmilk. “Like
the taste of many different
cultures,” says Kaiser.
Diverse Berlin is really
enthusiastic about the product.
“It’s because it tastes so good,”
says Kaiser. Sweet, wild and
different. A bit like Berlin.
Kaiser Honig, Neue Straße 17,
12103 Berlin, www.kaiserhonig.de.
A jar of honey or dulce de leche,
€4. Store open to visitors Friday,
3pm–8pm. You can also buy Kaiser
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