Sweet dreams from Bavaria

If you're going to indulge in a sweet treat, make it count with a luscious slice of a linzer torte, a melt-in-you-mouth birnen (pear) brownie, an oh-so-appetizing piece of apfel-rahm-kutchen (apple custard cake) or maybe a sumptuous serving of cranberry-caramel-almond tart.

You'll find these exquisite pastries and cakes and much more at Dagmar's Desserts and Café in Old Saybrook, the only authentic Bavarian/Austrian bakery in the region.

Dagmar's proprietor Dagmar Ratensperger, formerly of Nuremberg, Germany, has brought the hundreds-year-old prized tradition of fine pastry-making across the ocean to Connecticut. She met her husband, Bruno Ratensperger, a professional photographer, also originally from Bavaria, while he was visiting Europe, and the couple returned to the shoreline where he lived and had his photography studio.

Ratensperger knew business was in her future when she came to the U.S. in 1996 at 26 years old, newly married and speaking little English. But she didn't know that business would be baking.

Her background was in marketing and publishing, and she decided to go back to school at Southern Connecticut State University for a graduate degree in environmental economics. But she found jobs in that field were mostly in New York or Washington, D.C., and Bruno's business was based here.

So she went to work for a gourmet deli in Guilford that sold cakes and pastries and realized there was a niche in this area for German and Austrian desserts.

"There wasn't anything here like [in Europe] where the 'kaffee klatch' is an afternoon tradition - meeting with friends for coffee and pastry or cake to relax and chat," she says. "People here know about black forest cake and famous Viennese tortes and apple strudel, but there are so many more desserts."

And so, armed with her mother's recipes - "We always had cake in the house growing up," she says - and the customer service experience she acquired working in the deli, Ratensperger began looking for a location for a bakery.

In 2006 she found space in an industrial park in Deep River, put in a kitchen, and began baking.

Ratensperger admits that although she was a good cook, she hadn't baked very much and had no formal training. She's very modest about having taught herself to produce such exquisite and complex creations.

"I think I always wanted to do something with my hands. I didn't want to sit in an office all day," she says. "There's a lot of creativity in baking. I'm a very logical person, so I was surprised I was [doing this]. The interesting thing is that you never know what will happen in life - it's a journey."

Word of Dagmar's bakery traveled quickly. Pasta Vita in Old Saybrook started carrying her desserts, and lots of people began ordering items for the holidays. That's when Ratensperger began looking for a more central location with a café.

She opened in Old Saybrook this summer in a space next to the Tracy Art Center on Main Street that had been a bakery and café and was already equipped with a large commercial kitchen and hired Alison Moski, a professionally trained pastry chef.

The holidays are the biggest time of year at Dagmar's, and the orders are already starting to come in for traditional delights such as their famous Tannen Log (Buche de Noel)-a cocoa sponge roll filled with chocolate buttercream, covered in ganache and decorated with meringue mushrooms, fresh rosemary sprig "branches" and cranberries-and German stolen, fruit bread filled with raisins soaked in rum, candied fruits, nuts, and spices.

Ratensperger points out that people, especially those who travel and know good pastries, appreciate that Dagmar's cakes and pastries are not overpoweringly sweet, and they compliment her on their being able to really taste the fruit and spices in the desserts.

Dagmar's also uses local produce and ingredients as much as possible and offers Ashlawn Farm coffee from Old Lyme, local honey from New Haven, and truffles from Branford.

"We don't use anything artificial," she stresses. "No shortening, only really good butter, no food coloring or artificial flavoring - the highest quality ingredients - Belgian chocolate, the best hazelnuts and almonds. A lot of bakeries compromise quality because it's expensive, but I don't want to do that."