Origin of a Classic: Baumkuchen

With its distinctive ringed and ridged appearance and centuries-old history, Baumkuchen has become a beloved treat the world over. The German word “baumkuchen” translates to “tree cake,” which refers to a cylindrical cake that bakes in layers on a spit—a large pole or stick that is slowly turned over a fire—and, when sliced, resembles the rings of a tree. Cakes similar to baumkuchen began appearing in the Holy Roman Empire (portions of modern-day France, Germany, Italy, and other Western and Central European countries) in the Middle Ages. Historians approximate baumkuchen to be at least 600 years old, with the oldest German-language recipe first appearing in print around 1450. Baumkuchen originally started as a dough that is thinly patted onto the spit. After the first layer is cooked and the exterior has browned, another layer of dough is added and cooked. The layering and cooking process is repeated until the desired size is reached, typically 18 to 20 layers. Once it’s removed from the spit, the hollow cake is sliced crosswise to reveal its tree ring-like layers. The process to make the cake was long and involved, so it was largely reserved for holidays and special occasions among the wealthy; baumkuchen was a popular cake at weddings of the nobility in Nuremberg and Frankfurt, Germany. Individual servings were sometimes flavored with spices such as nutmeg or spirits like rum, but as ingredients spread and became more widely available, the dough itself was flavored.

Sometime during the 1500s, the process to make the cake changed. Rather than adding many thin layers of dough onto the spit, a thick dough was tied to it in intervals with string, which created ridges on the outside of the cake as it baked. And as chocolate became known to royalty and the elite in the 1600s, baumkuchen began being coated in chocolate before removal from the spit. The process continued to evolve and became the version that’s most familiar today: Rather than dough, layer upon layer of a thin batter is poured onto a constantly rotating cooking cylinder, and some bakeries use a wooden or metal comb to gently score the layers to re-create the exterior ridges from strings. Baumkuchen is still glazed with chocolate, though many bakers add their own flair with nuts and other decoration.

Even though baumkuchen’s popularity grew and it became more affordable to make, for most of its history, it was still largely made in private settings for parties. Around the early 1800s, bakeries in Dresden, Cottbus, and Salzwedel, Germany, created mail-order services for baumkuchen; the bakeries in Salzwedel became the most well-known for the cakes and are still in existence today. And love for baumkuchen has traveled all over the globe, with versions appearing in Japan and Hawaii. A baker named Karl Juchheim living in China was taken as a prisoner of war in Hiroshima, Japan, during World War I. After his release, he relocated to Japan and opened a bakery in Kobe, where he began to sell baumkuchen. The cake became a household favorite among the locals and eventually across the rest of Japan. In 1880, “Merrie Monarch” King Kalākaua of Hawaii visited Berlin, Germany, where he encountered baumkuchen. He loved the cake and brought the recipe back to Hawaii. Although the cake didn’t sweep across all the nation’s islands, today, the Baumkuchen Farm in Papaikou, Hawaii, sells its cakes with a tropical flair, infused with macadamia nuts, pineapple, mango, and Hawaiian coffee. And they sell full-size baumkuchen, known as “stems,” as wedding cakes.

Thankfully for everyone, you don’t have to let the fact that you don’t have a spit stand in your way to make baumkuchen. Our recipe was created for home bakers to achieve the same flavors and distinct layers as the original, and this version is just as worthy of serving at special celebrations.

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