Don’t spend the weeks leading up to the holidays in the kitchen baking. Count on Lou's Restaurant & Bakery for your favorite Christmas treats.

“Our holiday specialties provide Toby with an opportunity to highlight his love of Austrian and German pastries,” says Lou’s co-owner Pattie Fried of her husband. “Toby grew up in Vienna and loves preparing these classic favorites during the holidays. Most of his recipes have been handed down over the generations.” Here are several of them.

Traditional Austrian Stollen

With almond marzipan and imported candied fruits, this traditional German holiday bread has become a Lou’s favorite. Stollen makes the perfect host or hostess gift. A breakfast treat can include sliced and toasted stollen. The warmth melts the powdered sugar and softens the marzipan. “Stollen ships beautifully,” Pattie says, “and for the past 24 years, we have shipped them all over the United States including Alaska.”

European Christmas Cookies

The assortment includes nut meringues, pfeffernüsse, butter spritz dipped in chocolate, linzer squares, rum balls, macaroons, and chocolate-dipped apricots. Toby uses his family recipes for these beautiful holiday cookies. “These are always available during the holidays—wrapped in lovely gift bags and ready to go for a last-minute gift,” says Pattie.

Gingerbread People 

These charming characters are brightly decorated with holiday candy, and they make another great last-minute gift. “Customers love tucking these in the tops of Christmas stockings,” says Pattie.

Yule Logs

Treat your guests to yellow genoise cake with your choice of hazelnut, chocolate, or vanilla filling and decorated with cocoa-dusted meringue mushrooms and whimsical holiday helpers. Pattie says, “Yule logs make a beautiful centerpiece for a dessert table.”

Linzer Torte 

Delight in this beautiful, all-butter golden-brown hazelnut crust with imported raspberry preserves. Patti explains, “Toby grew up in Vienna, Austria, and linzers were one of his favorite holiday treats. These ship beautifully.”

Holiday Dessert Platter

This special treat features two pounds of European holiday cookies and one sliced stollen presented beautifully on a platter. “These platters are especially popular for office gatherings,” Patti reports. “I love to scatter evergreens and holiday ornaments around the platters.”

Pies

Pies are another of Lou’s specialties, but how can you choose just one? Pick from apple, apple streusel, cherry, pumpkin, multiberry, mince, pecan, key lime, chocolate cream, coconut cream, and banana cream.

Cakes

“Our New York–style cheesecake is topped with mandarins, berries, kiwis, and grapes, and it makes a colorful impression on any dessert buffet,” Pattie says.

“We also make traditional hanukkah treats, including babka, rugalach, challah bread, and jelly donuts,” says Pattie. “All are very popular. We have customers who are quite savvy and have figured out you can order blintzes made with local cheeses to go and then bake them at home.”

Pattie continues, “Every fall during holiday planning meetings, the issue of yule logs comes up. If you look at it from a practical business point of view, we shouldn’t be doing them,” she confesses. “But for those eight families who have faithfully ordered them for the past years, it would be a huge disappointment. Their grandchildren would be heartbroken, so we can’t say no. We've scheduled our son’s wedding around yule log production—seriously! You don't mess with holiday traditions. We see this love for our product as a good thing. If our food can transport anyone to a simpler, happier, kinder moment, especially through family traditions, we have done our job.”
“Talking about holiday goodies has brought another thought to mind,” Pattie comments. “Each year our orders of mincemeat pie have dwindled from 22 in 1996 to 6 in 2015. We always pause knowing that a customer has passed away or is no longer able to enjoy one of their holiday traditions from Lou’s. It’s bittersweet.”

Last but not least, “Don’t forget our Snowflake Dinner Rolls,” Patti adds. “We prepare these rolls twice a year, and they’re a soft, yeasty tradition for many families.”