Want free baking tips & tricks?
Sign up below and receive them directly into your inbox.
You'll be first to find out about new releases, promotions, and more.
You will also receive a free resource on how to make coconut macaroons.
About
About Heidrun
Heidrun Metzler was born and raised in Germany. She holds a degree in social pedagogy and early childhood education. Heidrun comes from a family of women who love to bake; her mother, aunt, and grandmother were her teachers. Heidrun has been creating her own recipes with an American influence since moving to the United States as a young woman. This book is the result of countless informal baking lessons she has shared with her family and friends. Now, her passion, knowledge, and skills are available to share with everyone.
Besides baking, Heidrun enjoys spending time with her horses, photography, art, and fire dancing. She lives with her husband and her horses on a farm in Hawaii.
Heidrun Metzler’s baking book offers generations’ worth of tips, techniques, and ingredient knowledge, along with step-by-step guidance and sidebars containing the little tips that often go unmentioned in recipes. Her tarts and cakes bloom with flavor, expertly combining fruits, chocolate, nuts, and creams. Heidrun passes on old world skills and offers new insights helping everyone to succeed with the same outcome. Special notes help avoid pitfalls when baking more delicate desserts, such as the Black Forest cake or Linzertorte.
Besides baking, Metzler loves spending time with her horses, she practices natural horsemanship and trick training. She published a children’s book inspired by her work with horses called Skeeter’s Dreams in 2011, followed by a second edition and an e-book version in 2014. Metzler also enjoys photography, drawing, and fire dancing. She lives with her husband on a farm in Hawaii.
Follow me on social media
SKEETER’S DREAMS
KIRKUS REVIEWS
TITLE INFORMATION
SKEETER’S DREAMS
Metzler, Heidrun
ISBN: 978-1-4575-2522-3
BOOK REVIEW
A lighthearted, illustrated can-do story about a four-legged performer extraordinaire. In this debut children’s book, Skeeter, an Arabian trick horse, gallops toward dreams and adventures. She envisions success in more exciting and certainly less-traditional career possibilities than her current role. “I am a trick horse and could do so much more,” Skeeter laments. “As long as I have dreams, who knows how high I can soar?” And soar she does. Readers travel with the stunning white horse as she transforms into a theatrical actress with a bouquet of roses between her teeth, a painter who stands beside a canvas showcasing the beautiful vista that surrounds her, a funky-hat-wearing musician bedecked with a guitar around her neck, and more. The fantasies become more and more far-fetched: She surfs a blue Hawaiian wave and masquerades as one of Santa’s helpers on a snow-covered field in front of a white-capped mountain. Amid the beautiful scenic backdrops, the singsong rhyming verse moves the story forward through the Arabian’s different personas. Metzler charmingly portrays Skeeter’s antics as the costumed horse prances through scenes in which she declares her hopes and fantasies, illustrated by the series of vivid, full-color (often amusingly if not flawlessly Photoshopped) photos of Skeeter’s imaginings. The dream concept could be turned into a lesson, either formal or not, although Metzler doesn’t make the point in an overly explicit manner. Instead, the author aims to lead the way toward a connection, but the message is subtle and the story remains Skeeter’s to tell. Either way, young readers will smile as they explore her antics. If a horse can be a mountain guide who spots and belays rock climbers, why can’t they? An enjoyable romp for kids willing to play along.
