Today is the 6th of December which is celebrated in Germany as Saint Nicholas day (Nikolaus). For Children this means they have to put their shoes in front of the door or window the night before. The next morning they will find them filled with chocolate, nuts, and oranges.

Since today is also the second Advent Sunday, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas. Maybe you thought about baking up a storm for the holidays. Maybe you also want to give homemade presents to your family and friends. If you haven’t decided what to make yet, here are some suggestions for you.

Stollen – a dense and rich Christmas cake filled (in this version) with raisins and marzipan. Very shelf stable. You can bake it a couple of days ahead and give it to your relatives or eat it with your family, served with tea or coffee and a generous amount of vegan butter:

Poppy Seed Stollen – also a traditional Christmas treat. This is a very non-authentic but still delicious version. I used baking powder instead of the yeast for a quicker version. This won’t keep as long as the traditional stollen, but maybe there is no need for storing anyway. We ate it very quickly:

Leipziger Lerchen – small shortbread cakes filled with marzipan. These wonderful treats are traditionally found at bakeries all over Leipzig, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t have them as well:

Nussecken – a buttery bar covered with lots of nuts and chocolate. Very addictive:

Zimtsterne – glutenfree cookies which you can wrap up in some pretty paper and give to all of your friends:

Lemon Cookies with Buttercream Filling- these cookies are very delicate and melt in your mouth:

Nut Balls – I’ve made these cookies so many times. Even  before I went vegan they were my favoutite. Veganizing them was easy:

Zebra Bread – a funny quick bread which will look awesome on your holiday table:

Kanelboller – Norwegian cinnamon buns which are especially good in winter because they are spiced with cardamom.

Black Forest Truffles – wrap these up and send them to your friends. They are boozy, crunchy, and delicious:

Walnut Brittle Chocolates – don’t forget to send these as well, because they are special:

For these Spekulatius (speculoos/speculaas) truffles, you can use gingersnaps or whatever spice cookie you prefer. Make a batch of Spekulatius-Butter (or whatever cookie butter you like) and cover it in chocolate: