Cakes and Pastries

The Christmas shelf, and the one worth planning ahead for. Stollen and cozonac are baked for the season and sell out before it ends.

KuchenMeister Christmas Stollen is the classic Dresden-style loaf — candied peel, raisins, almonds, buried under a heavy snow of icing sugar — and the Marzipan Stollen runs a seam of marzipan through the middle. Both are 500 g, both keep for weeks in their wrapping, and both improve if you buy them early and let them sit. That is not a sales line; stollen is meant to mature.

Boromir cozonac is the Romanian equivalent, a sweet plaited bread rolled with walnut, cocoa and raisin, and every bit as tied to Christmas and Easter as stollen is. Schlünder liqueur cake comes boxed and is the thing to take to someone else's table.

The rest of the shelf is everyday: Balconi Italian snack cakes in full and mini, Antonelli filled croissants made in Italy, DORA3 pistachio and chocolate croissants, and Simsek Bien croissants with cocoa cream.

European Food Store has imported these to Santa Rosa since 2011. Cakes and pastries ship anywhere in the United States; the chocolate-filled lines travel to California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Arizona, since chocolate does not survive a hot truck.