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MutzenmandelnQuark fritters in sugar

In Cologne and the rest of the Rhineland, bakeries pile their counters with Mutzenmandeln from Weiberfastnacht to Shrove Tuesday, and families fry them at home for carnival parties. A quick, soft dough of quark, egg, sugar and flour is rolled out, cut with a small almond-shaped cutter and fried until puffed and golden, then tossed in sugar while still warm. The common mistake is oil that is too hot, which leaves them raw and doughy in the middle. Chef's tip: a few drops of bitter almond extract or a little lemon zest gives them the classic bakery flavour.

40 min

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NonnenfürzleSugared choux puffs

Nonnenfürzle, the cheeky 'nuns' puffs', are a Swabian Fasnet treat, fried in kitchens from Rottweil to Stuttgart in the days before Lent when butter, eggs and fat had to be used up. A choux-style dough is cooked in the pan, beaten with eggs and dropped by the spoonful into hot fat, where the little balls puff up and turn themselves over. Dusted with cinnamon sugar, they are crisp outside and hollow and custardy inside. The common mistake is adding the eggs while the dough is still hot, which scrambles them and stops the puffs rising. Chef's tip: dip the spoon in the hot oil before each scoop so the dough slides off cleanly.

45 min

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KhajlaFried pastry rounds in sweet milk

In the old lanes of Lahore and Karachi's Burns Road, sweet shops fry khajla through the night in Ramadan so families can buy it fresh for sehri, the meal eaten before dawn. Each round is a stack of paper-thin layers of ghee-rubbed dough that shatter when you press them, and it is crumbled into a bowl of hot sweetened milk, often with fine pheni, to give slow energy for the fasting day. Chef's tip: keep the oil only medium-hot; khajla must fry slowly so every inner layer turns crisp before the outside browns.

100 min

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Marzipankartoffeln (German marzipan potatoes)

In Germany the run-up to Christmas is when these appear, piled in paper bags at the markets and in bowls on the Advent table; Lübeck, the city most famous for marzipan, makes them by the tonne. They are simply small balls of marzipan dusted in cocoa until they look like freshly dug new potatoes, sometimes with a few pricked 'eyes'. The inside is soft, sweet and fragrant with almond and a hint of rosewater; the cocoa coat is bitter and dry, which keeps the sweetness in check. Serve them with coffee, tuck them into a cookie tin or wrap them as small gifts. Shop marzipan sometimes contains egg white, so this one is made from scratch: a sugar syrup cooked to the soft-ball stage binds the ground almonds into a smooth, pliable paste, doing the job egg white does in some commercial pastes, and the result is naturally egg-free. Chef's tip: the common mistake is kneading the warm paste too long, which squeezes oil out of the almonds and makes it greasy; knead only until it comes together, then let it cool.

30 min

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Bratapfel (German baked apples with almond paste)

Across Germany, Bratäpfel are the smell of Advent: on cold December afternoons and evenings tart apples go into the oven filled with marzipan, raisins and nuts, and come out puffed, split and bubbling. The skin wrinkles, the flesh turns to a soft, sweet-sour purée and the almond filling melts into the juices. Serve them hot in their dish with the pan juices spooned over, and a plant-based vanilla sauce or a spoon of cold cream if you are not keeping them vegan. Shop marzipan sometimes contains egg white, so here you make a quick egg-free almond paste from ground almonds, icing sugar and a few drops of water, which holds the filling together just as well. The raisins are soaked in apple juice instead of rum. Chef's tip: choose a firm, sharp baking apple and score a ring around its middle; the common mistake is using a sweet eating apple without scoring, which bursts and collapses before the core is tender.

45 min

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پشاوری آئس کریم (Peshawari ice cream)Cardamom pistachio ice cream

In the Qissa Khwani bazaar of Peshawar, ice-cream sellers spin a tall metal drum inside a tub of crushed ice and salt, scraping the freezing milk off the walls with a long paddle until it turns thick, stretchy and pale. It is a summer evening treat, eaten from small bowls after dinner or late at night when the streets cool down, and often topped with a spoonful of falooda vermicelli or more chopped pistachio. The flavour is simple: slowly reduced milk, green cardamom and a little rose. This version has no eggs and no custard: a cornflour slurry cooked into the milk thickens it the way yolks would, and the starch holds on to water so ice crystals stay small and the texture stays smooth, while milk powder adds body without extra fat. You can churn it in a machine or still-freeze it in a tray and stir it every 45 minutes. Chef's tip: the common mistake is churning a warm base; chill it until it is fridge-cold right through, or it will turn icy instead of silky.

300 min

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RohrnudelnBaked plum yeast buns

In Bavaria and Franconia, Friday used to be a meatless day, and Rohrnudeln baked in the Rohr (oven) were the sweet main course: soft yeast buns packed tightly in a buttered dish so they rise into each other and bake with a sticky, caramelised base. Some families tuck a stoned plum or a spoon of plum butter into each one. They are served warm with vanilla sauce, and the leftovers go with coffee the next afternoon. A common mistake is spacing the buns apart, which stops them rising tall and soft. Chef's tip: pour a little milk and melted butter into the dish before baking; it turns into the golden crust the Bavarians love.

120 min

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ParadiesäpfelCandy apples

Paradiesäpfel shine from the sugar stalls at German fairs and Christmas markets, from the Cannstatter Wasen to the Hamburg Dom: small tart apples on wooden sticks, dipped in a glassy red sugar glaze that cracks when you bite it. Children often get them on the way home from the rides in autumn. The glaze is just sugar, water and a drop of vinegar boiled to the hard-crack stage, so a sugar thermometer helps. The most common mistake is using wet or waxed apples, which makes the glaze slide off. Chef's tip: scrub the apples in hot water and dry them completely first, then dip quickly and twist so the excess drips back into the pan.

40 min

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Lahori kulfaKulfi with falooda

On hot Lahore nights, families stroll to Gawalmandi food street and the old shops near Anarkali for kulfa: a whole cone of dense, cardamom-scented kulfi is sliced into fat discs, laid over soft falooda noodles and spooned over with rabri, the thick sweetened milk. It is cold, chewy and creamy in every mouthful. Contains milk and tree nuts (pistachio and almond); the falooda noodles may contain wheat. Chef's tip: scrape the bottom and sides of the pan constantly as the milk reduces; one scorched patch flavours the whole batch.

60 min

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Martín FierroCheese with quince paste

Ask for dessert in a Montevideo bodegón or a country parador and you may be offered a Martín Fierro: a thick slice of fresh, mild cheese laid with an equal slice of dense quince or sweet-potato paste, named after the gaucho of the epic poem. It's salty against sweet, soft against firm, and takes two minutes to assemble. Uruguayan fresh cheese is usually made with animal rennet, so choose one with vegetarian rennet if that matters to you. The mistake is serving it fridge-cold, which dulls both flavours. Chef's tip: cut the cheese and paste to exactly the same thickness, about 1 cm, so every bite has both.

5 min

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Ka'i ladrilloPeanut molasses bricks

Ka'i ladrillo — 'monkey brick' in Guaraní — is the sweet sold by vendors on Asunción buses and at country fiestas: roasted peanuts bound in boiled cane molasses and set in brick-shaped blocks, crunchy and dark with a slightly smoky toffee taste. It contains peanuts, so keep it away from anyone with a peanut allergy. The common mistake is taking the syrup off too soon, so the bricks stay sticky and never set. Chef's tip: test the syrup by dropping a little into cold water; it is ready when it sets into a brittle thread that snaps.

40 min

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KoserevaCandied bitter orange peel

Kosereva is a Paraguayan home preserve from the days when nothing was wasted: thick strips of bitter-orange peel soaked and boiled to soften their bite, then cooked slowly in dark cane molasses until glossy and nearly black. In the countryside it is eaten after lunch with a slice of fresh cheese or simply on its own. Bitter oranges (Seville oranges) are in season in winter. The most common mistake is not changing the boiling water enough, which leaves the peel unpleasantly bitter. Chef's tip: taste a sliver of peel after the third boil; it should be gently bitter like marmalade, not harsh.

180 min

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MarzanThick flour pudding with butter

When snow cuts off the villages of Baltistan around Skardu and Khaplu, marzan is the dish that keeps people going: wholewheat flour stirred into boiling water until it becomes a thick, smooth, heavy pudding, shaped into a mound with a well in the centre filled with melted butter and apricot-kernel oil. It is eaten communally by hand, each person pulling a piece from the edge and dipping it in the fat, and it is made for new mothers, for guests after a cold journey and for winter mornings. Some families eat it plain and savoury, others sweeten it with a little sugar or serve it with dried apricots, which is how it is written here. Lumps are the usual complaint, so add the flour slowly. Chef's tip: whisk the flour into the water a spoonful at a time, then switch to a sturdy wooden spoon and beat hard as it thickens; and use only food-grade culinary apricot-kernel oil, or more butter.

30 min

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Gola gandaShaved ice with syrups

Nothing says summer evening at Clifton beach or Burns Road quite like the clatter of a gola ganda cart, where a block of ice is shaved on a hand plane, packed round a stick into a fist-sized ball and doused in rose-pink, mango-orange and purple kala khatta syrups. It melts fast in the Karachi heat, so children lick it from the bottom as it drips, and the fancier stalls serve it in a plate with condensed milk, desiccated coconut and a pinch of chaat-style salt on the sour syrup. At home a hand ice shaver or a powerful blender makes snow fine enough to press into balls. The most common disappointment is ice crushed too coarsely, which will not hold together and lets the syrup run straight through. Chef's tip: freeze the ice from boiled and cooled drinking water in a shallow tray, and put the glasses or plates in the freezer too, so the gola keeps its shape for longer.

10 min

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Gur wale chawalJaggery rice

Every winter, when the sugarcane presses in the villages around Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan boil the new season's jaggery, families celebrate with a pot of gur wale chawal. Basmati grains turn a warm amber in a syrup of melted gur and ghee, with fennel seeds and cardamom for fragrance and raisins, almonds and coconut tucked through, and the result is sweet but not sticky, each grain separate. It is cooked for weddings, for distribution on religious days and simply for guests on a cold evening, and eaten warm, sometimes with a spoonful of extra ghee on top. Adding the jaggery to raw rice is the commonest error, because sugar stops the grains from softening and they stay hard. Chef's tip: boil the rice until it is three-quarters cooked first, then fold it into the jaggery syrup and let it steam.

40 min

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Lab-e-shireenFruit custard with vermicelli

The name means "sweet lips", and on Eid-ul-Fitr afternoons in Karachi and Lahore a glass bowl of it sits in nearly every fridge, waiting for guests who move from house to house. It is a cold, pourable vanilla custard folded through with toasted vermicelli, cubes of red and green jelly, banana, apple, grapes and tinned fruit, finished with cream and sometimes a scatter of nuts. Shop jelly is made with gelatine, so this version sets fruit juice with agar, which also holds up better at room temperature on a crowded table. A lot of cooks get the custard too thick, so once it chills it turns stiff and cannot coat the fruit. Chef's tip: make the jelly and the custard the night before, and stir in the fruit and cream only an hour or two before serving so the bananas stay pale and the vermicelli keeps a little bite.

40 min

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Maizes zupaRye bread dessert soup

Maizes zupa, 'bread soup', is Latvia's way of using up dark rye bread: the bread is soaked and cooked down with dried fruit, sugar and cinnamon into a thick, sweet, deep-brown pudding, cooled and topped with whipped cream. It is on the menu in Riga's canteen-style restaurants and in school lunches, and every Latvian grandmother has her own version. A common mistake is using light rye; it needs dense, dark Latvian or German-style rye for its malty taste. Chef's tip: add a squeeze of lemon and a spoon of cranberries; their sharpness lifts the sweet, heavy soup.

55 minBaltic Desserts

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MutanjanSweet coloured rice with candied fruit

If zarda is the everyday celebration rice, mutanjan is its showy older sibling: the grains are dyed in three or four colours, layered with khoya, tutti frutti, nuts and small milk sweets, and steamed so that a spoonful looks like confetti. It is a Lucknowi and old Delhi tradition that came to Karachi with the families who migrated in 1947, and it still turns up at nikah dinners and on Shab-e-Barat in Karachi and Hyderabad, as well as in the old mithai shops of Lahore. The texture should be soft, sticky-sweet and rich with ghee, the flavour heady with cardamom and kewra. The thing that ruins it most often is stirring the coloured rice together, which blurs the colours into a muddy brown. Chef's tip: colour the rice in separate bowls, layer it in the pot without mixing, and only fold it once, very lightly, after the dum.

85 min

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ShuftaPaneer and dried fruit sweet

Shufta is the sweet that ends a Kashmiri wedding feast or an Eid lunch in Mirpur and Muzaffarabad, a glossy jumble of golden fried paneer, almonds, walnuts, dates, apricots and raisins bound in a thick syrup scented with saffron and cardamom. A pinch of black pepper and dry ginger runs through the sweetness, which is very old Kashmiri habit and keeps it from being cloying, and the paneer stays soft inside its crisp skin. It is eaten in small spoonfuls, warm or at room temperature, sometimes alongside kahwa. Cooking the syrup too far is the mistake to avoid, because once it reaches a hard thread it sets like toffee around the fruit as it cools. Chef's tip: use paneer that has been pressed for an hour so it fries golden without breaking; shop-bought paneer is acid-set and needs no rennet check.

40 min

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ZardaSweet saffron rice

Its name comes from the Persian word for yellow, and at a Pakistani shaadi the great degh of zarda arrives after the biryani and korma, glowing gold and fragrant with cardamom, cloves and kewra. The grains should be long, separate and glossy with ghee, sweet but not syrupy, studded with almonds, pistachios, plump raisins and often a few cubes of crumbled khoya or glacé cherries. Families also cook a smaller pot for Eid, for a new baby or to send round to neighbours on a happy day, and it is eaten warm or at room temperature on its own. The classic error is boiling the rice all the way before adding the sugar; the sugar then melts into syrup and the over-soft grains break into mush. Chef's tip: boil the rice only until it is two-thirds cooked with a firm centre, because it finishes cooking in the sugar's own moisture during the dum.

80 min

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Rote GrützeRed berry pudding

Rote Grütze is the summer dessert of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, made when the gardens are full of redcurrants, raspberries and sour cherries. The fruit is cooked briefly, thickened with a little cornflour and chilled until it sets to a glossy, spoonable jelly, tart and deep red, with whole berries still in it. Northerners pour cold vanilla sauce or plain cream over it; with a plant-based vanilla sauce it is fully vegan. A common mistake is boiling all the berries: add the soft raspberries last, off the heat, so they keep their shape. Chef's tip: frozen mixed berries work beautifully out of season, and their juice gives an even deeper colour.

20 min

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OfenschlupferBaked bread pudding with apples

Ofenschlupfer, literally 'oven-crawler', is how Swabian farmhouse kitchens used up stale rolls on a Friday: slices of bread layered with apples, raisins and a little cinnamon in a deep dish, soaked in vanilla egg milk and baked until puffed and golden. Some families pour in a splash of rum; this version doesn't. It was once eaten as a sweet main course after a bowl of soup and is still served warm with vanilla sauce in Stuttgart cafés. A common mistake is baking it straight after pouring in the custard, which leaves dry patches on top; let it soak for 20 minutes. Chef's tip: dot the top with butter and a spoon of sugar for a crackly, caramelised crust.

65 min

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PfitzaufEgg-batter puffs with apple sauce

Pfitzauf is a Swabian Sunday-afternoon treat: a thin egg and milk batter poured into a heavy clay or tin mould with deep cups, which rises in the oven like a soufflé and 'pfitzt auf', pops up, far above the rim. Grandmothers on the Swabian Alb served it hot with apple sauce or vanilla sauce, sometimes with stewed cherries. A muffin tin or popover tin works too. The classic mistake is opening the oven during baking: the puffs collapse and never come back. Chef's tip: get the buttered tin really hot in the oven before pouring in the batter; the shock of heat is what makes them climb.

45 min