Classic German Baking is full of nostalgia and tradition from Luisa Weiss and her Berlin kitchen. 

I have a soft spot in my heart for dowdy cookies and cakes. You know the ones: old-fashioned, unassuming, and not too sweet—the kind of thing your grandmother probably grew up eating or the sort of cookie you’d feel good giving to your toothless baby to gum on. You’d barely even register them if they showed up next to a towering, sexy, fudge-frosted layer cake. But what they lack in looks they more than make up for in flavor.

These Zwieback (which means “twice-baked”) are the quintessential plain-Jane cookie. Their base is a simple sponge loaf with walnuts folded in. Once baked and cooled, the loaf is thinly sliced, and then the slices are baked until they turn faintly golden. Out of the oven, the cookies—subtly fragrant with toasted walnuts—get more and more crisp as they cool. They’re addictive in their own quiet way. The Zwieback keep for a good long while and are excellent either at teatime or served with fruit sorbet for a very chic dessert.

You can swap out the walnuts for other nuts, such as almonds or hazelnuts (which should be skinned and toasted before being coarsely chopped; add tiny dried currants (as in the photograph), or, for a cookie with Austrian flair, use pumpkin seeds.