Java | Create an explicit addition function only using recursion and conditionals

Question

Preface

By finding some free time in my schedule, I quested myself into improving my recursion skills (unfortunately). As practice, I want to recreate a

Answer 1

public static int add (int a, int b) {
    if (b == 0) return a;
    if (b > a) return add (b, a);
    add (++a, --b);
}

Just with ++/--.