Stock Photo - PRODUCTION - 28 August 2023, Saxony, Bad Düben/ Ot Tiefensee: At the Sommerfeld bakery in Bad Düben's Tiefensee district, master baker Gerd Sommerfeld and his daughter, journeywoman baker Jana, prepare the 85-centimeter-long pieces of dough for the Mehdicke pumpernickel on the baking sheets for the oven. They have been making the pastry for many years according to a secret recipe and an imperial patent from 1908. Lovers from all over Germany, and sometimes from Japan and Switzerland, pick up the sweet pumpernickel in the store or have it sent to them by mail. The recipe for the approximately 100,000 pumpernickels produced each year is not revealed, of course; all that is known is the high proportion of sugar and honey and crushed hazelnuts. The baker's family has particularly high demand for the pastry, which is known as a nerve food, during the Christmas season, for which preparations are already underway. Photo: Waltraud Grubitzsch/dpa/ZB. - Bad Düben/ Ot Tiefensee/Saxony/Germany