When Hiltrud Steimel was growing up in a small village in the Nahe River Valley in south-central Germany, the smells of baked goods and savory entrees were constantly drifting out of her grandmother’s kitchen. Even her fondest memory revolves around the preparation of food—as a child, Steimel and her grandmother would take an annual “first walk to the garden” to harvest the first crop of vegetables for a spring soup.

On Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, the family would share freshly baked cakes, and Steimel loved sitting amid the grown-ups and listening to them talk around a table with linens and fine china. “There were strong women in my family, and it was part of the tradition for them to bake and for all of us to connect with one another over those cakes,” she says. They often baked according to the seasons, with fruit cakes and tortes in the summer and fall, and preserved fruit cakes in the winter.
   
After she moved to the United States in 1962, Steimel began baking and cooking for her own family, and although she had to modify many of her childhood dishes (by learning to make “hotdish,” for example), she never lost the knack or the passion for baking those traditional cakes.
   
Finally, in 2005, she decided to share her family’s baking expertise by starting Rhineland Cake and Wine Company, which offers three of what Steimel considers to be the best cakes of her upbringing: a red wine cake (called rotwein kuchen in the Rhineland), made with cocoa, cinnamon, and of course, a bit of red wine; an apricot almond cake (mandel-aprikonsenkuchen), made with dried apricots and finely ground almonds; and a creation she calls “my daughter’s favorite cake,” with three different kinds of raisins—golden, regular and currants—and a hint of natural vanilla.

Steimel is also debuting a new cake this fall, the apple sunshine cake, which is made with fresh apples, and ideal with a bit of ice cream or as a morning coffee cake.