How a mother turned her drowned daughter’s passion into a thriving patisserie

A staff member serves a customer in the shop set up to ‘understand what drove Johanna’s passion’, her mother said. Photograph: Axel Javier Sulzbacher/Panos

Johanna Orth was a fun-loving, determined little girl and later a purpose-driven young woman who revelled in making a creative mess in the kitchen. Her parents, Inka and Ralph, chuckle quietly as they remember the stacks of batter-covered bowls, spatulas and whisks repeatedly left in the sink.

With time, Johanna’s cakes and pastries grew more sophisticated and elaborate, guided by her grandmother, Marlies, who was also a talented baker. Marlies’ own ambition of opening a cafe one day had been thwarted by the demands of motherhood and postwar Germany’s rigid gender roles.