Liedtext (Lyrics)
Der vollständige Liedtext von „Backe, backe Kuchen“ mit englischer Übersetzung.
Backe, backe Kuchen, der Bäcker hat gerufen! Wer will guten Kuchen backen, der muss haben sieben Sachen: Eier und Schmalz, Zucker und Salz, Milch und Mehl, Safran macht den Kuchen gel'! Schieb in den Ofen ein!
#English translation
Bake, bake a cake, the baker has called out! Whoever wants to bake a good cake must have seven things: eggs and lard, sugar and salt, milk and flour, saffron makes the cake yellow! Slide it into the oven!
#Backe, backe Kuchen at a glance
- Country of origin
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- Sung in
- German
- Words by
- Traditional
- First known
- before 1840 (recipe line c. 1450)
- Best for ages
- 2–7
- Mood
- playful, traditional
- Last updated
- 25 July 2026
How to sing it
- Clap hands together in time — it is a clapping song, like "Pat-a-cake".
- Count the seven ingredients off on your fingers as you name them.
- On "Schieb in den Ofen ein!" push both hands forward as if sliding the cake into the oven.
Meaning and origin
This is Germany’s great baking song, and like the English “Pat-a-cake” it is really a game for the hands: you clap in time, count the ingredients off on your fingers, and at the end push both palms forward to slide the imaginary cake into the oven. The pleasure is in the list and the actions as much as the tune.
That list is older than the song. “Backe, backe Kuchen” is thought to date from before 1840, in Saxony and Thuringia, but its recipe — the “seven things” needed for a good cake — echoes a Württemberg cookbook from around 1450, which sets out cake ingredients in exactly the same rhyming way. The song has kept, almost word for word, a way of remembering a recipe that is nearly six centuries old.
One line even preserves a lost word. Safran macht den Kuchen gel — saffron makes the cake yellow — uses the old form “gel” rather than the modern German “gelb”, because “gel” rhymes with “Mehl”, flour. The children singing it are keeping alive both a medieval recipe and a scrap of older German, without ever knowing they are doing either.
Common questions
- What is "Backe, backe Kuchen" about?
- Baking a cake. The baker has called, and to make a good cake you need seven things — eggs and lard, sugar and salt, milk and flour, and saffron to turn it yellow — before it is pushed into the oven. It is a clapping and finger-counting song, the German cousin of "Pat-a-cake".
- How old is "Backe, backe Kuchen"?
- The song is presumed to date from before 1840, in Saxony and Thuringia, but the idea is far older: a Württemberg cookbook from around 1450 lists cake ingredients in the very same way.
- What does "Safran macht den Kuchen gel" mean?
- "Saffron makes the cake yellow." Saffron was used to give baked goods a golden colour. The old word "gel" (yellow) is kept because it rhymes with "Mehl" (flour) — the modern German "gelb" would not.
