Baker Meister owner's German roots inspired his bakery's offerings, from pretzel to strudel

Michael Schuerstedt’s typical work day starts around 2 a.m., and the first thing he does is turn on the fryer. While that heats up, he gets his dough ready.

When the customers arrive at Baker Meister, 421 N. Wisconsin St., Elkhorn, the shelves will be stocked with fresh doughnuts, Danish, kringle, coffee cake, cinnamon crunch bread, cookies, cupcakes, pies, turnovers, rye breads and rolls, and his bestselling German pretzels. Other specialties, like cream horns, are available on a rotating basis. Plan to get there early if you want his popular jalapeno cheese pretzels.

After a fire in March 2022 at their original location in Okauchee, Schuerstedt and his wife, Gwendolyn, relocated and opened in Elkhorn in October 2022. Their Old World European treats come from recipes Michael built from his childhood and while training to be a master baker in Germany. His not-so-secret ingredient is real butter, always.

Baker Meister draws customers from throughout southeastern Wisconsin, and the specialty European cakes including bienenstich, black forest torte and sacher torte must be ordered at least a day in advance. If someone has a request and he has the ingredients, he’s happy to take special orders, as well.

Thanksgiving pies are available in 11 flavors, including apple, cherry, pumpkin, pecan, coconut cream and chocolate cream, priced $12 to $18. Pie and dinner roll orders for Thanksgiving must be placed by Nov. 19.

Baker Meister is open 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, and 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Order in-person or call (262) 379-1463.

Schuerstedt recently talked about his business and his favorite treats.

Baker Meister made the move from Okauchee to Elkhorn

We started in Okauchee. There was a fire (in March 2022). Our apartment was above the bakery. The building was 120 years old and everything was grandfathered in, but after the fire they had to do everything new. ... My wife and I said, OK, we can do this. We went to Elkhorn to look for a travel trailer RV until we could start up again. On our way back, we saw the building here in Elkhorn for sale. ... It had been updated really well. So we bought the building. That’s how we ended up here. We love it.

How a baker’s German roots inspired his bakery

I was raised in West Germany, and I learned baking there. It was all by accident. Way back when I was about 8 years old my mom used to help out at a bakery next door. This is way back when you didn’t even use a phone, you just walked over and talked to the boss. My mom had the flu. “Michael, can you go tell Rolf I can’t make it tomorrow?” OK. He said, “What am I going to do?” It was simple work, putting rolls on the belt, a nice hard roll line, because in Germany you make a lot of hard rolls and bread. I said, “I can do it.” So I went in at 4 a.m. and helped him out. One thing led to another.

I tried a few times to do other things, but I always came back to baking. I just love it. With baking, you must like your job. If you don’t like it, the hours are not nice. When the holidays come, everybody is off, but that is when you work the most. When you’re finally done you are so tired you go to church and you almost fall asleep. But nowadays with the freezer, we can work ahead a bit. Like today, we had a full production with kringles and coffee cakes. We make them all up and at night I take them out of the cooler and put them in the proofer, let it rise and bake it. That takes a lot of the stress away. You don’t have to start as early. The old bakers would start between 8 and 11 p.m. We start around 2 or 3 a.m. Actually, we love to start at 3 a.m., but I call that banker’s hours! We’re very lucky.

Baking is a dying profession. Just look around and see how many bakeries we had 30 years ago, and how many we have now. I have a master's in baking, accounting, and business. I was called here in 1988. A company in Mount Prospect, Illinois, needed help. I liked it from day one. That’s how I stayed here. ... I met my wife in the bakery. She used to be a customer.

The secrets behind his bestselling pretzels

The pretzels, I have people coming from all over the place for those! A gentleman from Illinois was at the Geneva Tap House in Lake Geneva and had them. He asked where she got them. Now he picks up 300 pretzels every weekend. If you eat our pretzels, I have you hooked. The pretzels, you have to make them fresh every day. A lot of bakeries freeze them, have them in the freezer. I can’t do that.

We have large, regular and mini pretzels. They’re soft. The jalapenos and pretzels, those are so popular. That was first by accident. Someone walked in, asked us to put jalapeno on with cheese. It has to be Swiss cheese. If you use other cheese, it will burn. A couple other people saw that and asked for it too. I started doing it on just weekends. Now I do it every day. That is something you would not think of, a German product with jalapenos, but it works.

Save room for strudel

The traditional strudel is a puff dough in Germany; farther south is a Hungarian strudel with a phyllo dough. I do the traditional puff pastry dough. We have the Napoleons. My wife does the black forest cake and the sacher torte, the bienenstich. I bake them, she does the rest. Now she does it better than me.

We sell a lot of doughnuts, pretzels, cakes, coffee cakes and the strudels. The kringles, you can get them in the supermarket, of course, but there’s not much in them. Ours are very rich. We do the apple turnovers, cherry turnovers and almond pretzels. If you don’t want a full apple strudel, the turnovers are made from the same dough.

There might be a line for this favorite treat

We sell doughnuts every day. The bestseller is the Bavarian custard. We have raspberry, and one filled with buttercream. Sometimes customers leave the store with those, and then a few minutes later come back. They want more of the buttercream! We get a lot of that.

The kolaches, people fight for the last one at two in the afternoon. I’ve seen it. So come early. If you can’t make it, call in if you want us to put something aside. Especially when you are going to make a long trip, call us and we’ll put it on the side for you so you are not disappointed when you can’t get an item, or you want a specialty item like bienensitch. In Okauchee I couldn’t keep the bienenstich in the showcase. There were more older, European folks in Okauchee. We still make the bienenstich. Just call us the day before, and we’ll make that and things like the Swedish fluff.

The regional rules of rye

I used to make caraway rye bread in Illinois. When I moved farther up north, it wasn’t as well known. Then in Okauchee, I couldn’t make enough of it. People wanted rye bread with salt for their fish fry. Here in Elkhorn, I made a caraway and people said it was too much. Now I use ground caraway so you get the characteristics.

The first recipe he learned

In Europe, the first recipe was cookie dough. The second was puff dough, then Danish, and butter kuchen, which is a sweet dough with a lot of butter and almonds, almost like a bienenstich.

Plan ahead for these Old World favorites

The schwarzwalder kirschtorte, the black forest cake, is a rich chocolate cake with cherry brandy for the layers, and real good cherries. We always ask the customer what they want for this one, because the original one in Germany is with whipped cream. Most here in this country prefer buttercream. When I get German people come in, they say right away, make sure it is whipped cream. We always ask. That’s number one.

The sacher torte, it is a really rich cake. My wife, she is really good with that one. It is with apricot, and sometimes a little bit of raspberry. I don’t know why people ask for raspberry, but people request it. The paczki... when I came from Europe to the States, I asked, "What is paczki?" Now we sell a ton. It is a little like a bismark, but the dough is richer and sweeter. When you fry them you have to make sure you don’t burn them.

I did yeasted diamond-shaped kolaches in Niles, Illinois. Then I tried the round kolaches with real cream cheese and butter, and that really sells here. That and the almond horn, also (made) from the rich kolache dough, features real marzipan inside. We sell a ton of those.

What he indulges in every week

I love the pretzels. On the sweet side I like my Danish. Two or three times a week, I take a Danish, sometimes a doughnut. When we have visitors I take advantage and get a kringle, chocolate chip or cherry cheese. The cakes, I like the black forest cake with the real whipped cream.

Butter makes things better

Our buttercream is made with real butter, a long process, takes almost 40 minutes just to make it. You have to add a little bit of liquid, we use half and half, otherwise the buttercream can get too stiff, especially in winter. The key is using good ingredients. You have to use butter. Real butter.

Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email clewis@journalsentinel.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Baker Meister serves up German pretzels, strudel and more in Elkhorn