I fetch her the toy bricks Father made from a fallen hornbeam, but she rolls her eyes, hands me a slice of castellated krustenbrot, sends me to town for a bushel of ginger. She bakes model cottages with strudel-work windows, byres with almond-paste oxen, kennels with marzipan puppies. When her schloss cake collapses from its surfeit of turrets, she simply laughs and starts again. Soon she’s building sturdy barns with dumpling mortar, merchants’ houses with pumpernickel shing