Pâtissier Christian Hümbs: New baking book from the juror from “The big baking”

“Bake you around the world”
Star pastry chef Christian Hümbs provides the reference – a new book leads into the world’s bakeries

by Tina Poker
November 8th, 2021, 5:50 pm

His career is unthinkable without football. Because if Christian Hümbs hadn’t cracked a vortex while playing, he would probably be restoring the ceilings in some church today. Because that’s what he really wanted: to be a plasterer. And not bake cakes.

Christian Hümbs. This is someone who likes to wear a cap, sneakers, three-day beard. Someone who eats a Franzbrötchen in the morning, or two. Very relaxed. And then there is the accurate Hümbs. The one who doesn’t leave a single gram to chance in the kitchen. Everything, really everything, weighs. A perfectionist. And one of the best pâtissiers Germany has to offer.

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Typical of the country à la Hümbs

Wherever he works, the stars are at home. He was with Johann Lafer in the Stromburg, in Haerlin in Hamburg, in La Mer on Sylt. He is now head pastry chef at the Zurich hotel “The Dolder Grand”. Hümbs has been known in the scene at least since he created his aroma menus that bring the salty into the sweet. But Hümbs is not only something for the exclusive circle of star kitchen lovers, it is also suitable for the masses.

He has been showing this on television for years as a juror on “The Big Baking”. He didn’t really want that either – television. “I was just about to make a name for myself in this area. I didn’t want to hold my face in the camera,” says Hümbs. But then he did it after all and, yes, meanwhile also with great passion, infected by the enthusiasm and creativity of the candidates.

Baking book with world flair

There is already a book by him. “Richtig gutbacken” was published in 2015. Fans had to wait six long years for a second look. With “Back yourself around the world: 90 sweet recipes against wanderlust” the pastry chef is now taking readers on a culinary journey. And, as he writes in the foreword, gives “a very personal insight into the world’s bakeries”. Local recipes and specialties were selected. We’re talking about Black Forest cake, Portuguese pastel de nata, Japanese mochi – that is, real food and stomach dishes.

Hümbs drew inspiration for the selection from his followers on Instagram, from friends and colleagues all over the world. Including dishes that he had never tasted himself before. How it works? With expertise and a good network. Baking is unlimited creativity for him. A job that he loves. It is not surprising that he took pleasure in taking on the classics and giving them his own handwriting. In the case of the Austrian Cardinal Cut, for example, the mocha cream is not used and instead the coffee Chantilly is chosen. Is that in proper style? No.

Can you do that with such specialties? In the end, the Danube wave from the book tastes like a Danube wave should taste, according to Hümbs. “But she cannot compete with the emotion that the Danube wave triggers from grandma,” he says. As with grandma, it only tastes good with grandma. On the other hand, it tastes like Hümbs, and therefore like top pâtisserie. If you do it right.

Well, and then there is the thing with the Franzbrötchen. Hümbs has loved that so much since his time in Hamburg that Switzerland without it was out of the question. His own creation has meanwhile – how could it be otherwise – of course long since developed into a box-office hit. The recipe for re-baking can be found in the new cookbook and here.

The new baking book from Star-Pâtissier Christian Humbs “Bake yourself around the world: 90 sweet recipes against wanderlust“was published by DK Verlag, 224 pages, EUR 24.95.

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