You make such delicious looking plates. Now I want seafood.
I want everyone to know, I'm first in line for these lebkuchen cookies.My want for Nuremberger lebkuchen outweighs the tedium of their creation, so I embark to make cookies. Step one is candying lemon peels. I dropped half a vanilla bean in there this time, I don't usually do that.
Your cookies look delicious @Minnegrowta. They are one of my favorite holiday cookies. I've never had any luck finding a good recipe though. I purchase these. Wicklein Meistersinger brand Oblaten Lebkuchen. They were the brand we have always purchased from the local German market. I tried a few recipes and nothing comes close to them.Day 2 fuckin with cookies
My aunt Dagmar and her sister Eva would go to the Christkindmarkt and mail lebkuchen to my brother and I when we were children. We stopped being children so the cookies stopped. I'm never going to be wealthy enough to fuck off to Germany every Christmas just for cookies, so I went recipe hunting many years ago to find a recipe that hit all the right notes. There wasn't any one single recipe that did it for me, I had to mix and match. I'll type up my card for you in a bit. Today is day 3 fuckin with cookies, I'm glazing with a milk chocolate for half and a sugar milk glaze for the other half that's got a little patrón citronge in it.Your cookies look delicious @Minnegrowta. They are one of my favorite holiday cookies. I've never had any luck finding a good recipe though. I purchase these. Wicklein Meistersinger brand Oblaten Lebkuchen. They were the brand we have always purchased from the local German market. I tried a few recipes and nothing comes close to them.
Our Aunt Adile used to send them to us from Germany as well. She stopped when she got too old to do so anymore. I'd love to try your version of the cookie. The last recipe I tried turned out to flat and with too much lemon flavor in the glaze.My aunt Dagmar and her sister Eva would go to the Christkindmarkt and mail lebkuchen to my brother and I when we were children. We stopped being children so the cookies stopped. I'm never going to be wealthy enough to fuck off to Germany every Christmas just for cookies, so I went recipe hunting many years ago to find a recipe that hit all the right notes. There wasn't any one single recipe that did it for me, I had to mix and match. I'll type up my card for you in a bit. Today is day 3 fuckin with cookies, I'm glazing with a milk chocolate for half and a sugar milk glaze for the other half that's got a little patrón citronge in it.
I've tried one (maybe two) without glaze and they are near perfect. The nitpicks I have lie with the lemons I used to make the candied rinds. The lemons I get these days are very 50/50. Sometimes they are lovely and sometimes they are horribly bitter and sour with a strange brownness in the middle.Our Aunt Adile used to send them to us from Germany as well. She stopped when she got too old to do so anymore. I'd love to try your version of the cookie. The last recipe I tried turned out to flat and with too much lemon flavor in the glaze.
Thanks @Minnegrowta. I've made candied citrus peel many times. I like it as a snack all by itself. Do you also use hazelnuts in your recipe?Lebkuchengewürz
30g Cylon cinnamon
12 pc whole clove
5g ground cardamom
2 pc whole nutmeg
5g whole allspice
3g coriander
3g aniseed
Blend into fine powder
Candied citrus peel
3 lemons or oranges, do not mix, do one or the other
Peel fruit of their meat pulp. Sometimes I leave a few slices with it on. Slice peels into thin strips, 8mm wide. Place rinds into a saucepan and cover the peels with fresh cold water. Bring water to a boil. When water is boiling rapidly, pour off water, and refill with new fresh cold water. Repeat 3 times for lemons, once for oranges (this removes bitterness from the pith and rind). Now fill the pot with 2 cups cold water and 2 cups sugar. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Simmer and gently stir until rinds are translucent. Remove from heat and store in a sealed container in their syrup, or lay them out to dry and coat with sugar later.
My parents are immigrants and I am the first born child They came at a time when Germany was still like.. being "cancelled" by America. My dad's experience as an older child in America was pretty bad. His sisters were babies and he was a young teen. When he started his own family he "cancelled" germany in his own house too. Didn't learn the culture, language, nothing. I have a rouladen recipe, an eclectic mix of swear words/ethnic/racial slurs, and phrases that usually translated to something threatening. His sisters taught their children all the german things and so they're bilingual. I feel cheated. I know why, but it still hurts. I roll with what I get.My grandfather was the first born child in the US to German immigrants, he used to drive the trolleys in St Paul. I guess they were horse drawn when he started, I can't imagine taking care of horses in the winter up there.
What a nice addition to have the back story about Lebkuchen. Thank you for sharing your recipe. I will make it and follow your directions carefully."Lebkuchen is German gingerbread and there are as many recipes for it as there are bakers who make it. My favorite, and the best known , is Nürnberger Lebkuchen, They are baked on oblaten (thin Communion-like wafers first used by monks in the 15th century so the cookies wouldn’t stick to the baking sheets), and they are known for their light, soft texture. There is a high ratio of nuts (almonds and hazelnuts) to flour and candied lemon peel and marzipan are essential ingredients. First documentation of lebkuchen appears in the 11th century in handwritten letters from a monastery in Bavaria. In 1293, the first gingerbread baking guild was formed and by the 14th century it was being produced in many German cities. It is the first cookie associated with the Christmas season. Lebkuchen is usually soft, but a harder type is used to produce large heart shaped cookies inscribed with icing that are available at German Christmas Markets and witch houses made popular in the fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel. Nurnberger Lebkuchen is a Protected Designation of Origin and must be produced within the boundaries of the city. The Nurnberg Christkindlmarkt begins the day after Thanksgiving and lasts until Christmas Eve."
Some nice back story on this particular cookie...
Sarah's Lebkuchen v3.1 *last updated in 2016
Makes 38 cookies
Back Oblaten 70mm
240g All Purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Sea Salt (do not use table salt)
6 tsp Lebkuchengewürz- use more to taste if you like heavily spiced
115g Almond Flour
115g Hazelnut Flour
1 cup minced Candied Citrus Rinds
6 oz Almond Paste/Marzipan
6 Large Eggs
320g Brown Sugar
Optional decorative almonds (I like halves to make little stars)
I also have this recipe in freedom units, on request.
In a medium size bowl, combine all purpose flour, baking powder, sea salt, and lebkuchengewürz and set aside.
In the bowl of a food processor, add the almond and hazelnut flours, minced citrus rinds, and marzipan, pulse until finely chopped. Add eggs and brown sugar and pulse until well mixed. Move all the wet ingredients out of the food processor and into a large mixing bowl. Add the dry ingredients one half of the bowl at a time with a nice sturdy wooden spoon. The dough will be very heavy, sticky, and wet. Cover the bowl of cookie dough with plastic wrap pressed down onto the batter to seal oxygen out, and refrigerate at least a few hours to a couple overnights (the flavors and textures meld and bake better if you give it time to marinate in its own existence).
When you are ready to bake, set the oven to 325 degrees with your rack in the center and prepare a large cookie sheet with a silpat or parchment paper. Grab your kitchen scale and cover it with parchment paper held down with a smear of cookie dough. On each oblaten I weigh 36 grams of cookie dough. Do your best, the dough is not moldable or rollable, it is very sticky and challenging to manipulate. Place each prepared cookie on your cookie sheet at least an inch apart from one another. Decorate with almonds if you want to do that step. Place in the oven and bake for 14 minutes. Rotate the sheet at 7 minutes if you have a hot spot in your oven. Pull the cookies and allow them to cool on the cookie sheet. Lay them out to rest to room temperature before moving on to glazing, or if you are storing for a while before glazing.
Boozy Citrus Glaze
Boozy Milk Chocolate Glaze
It's cool hearing of folks with similar family histories to my own. My father came from Germany when he was 17, that was in 1959. He remembers the hardships they faced during his childhood growing up after the war. He spoke German and English while we grew up. But, like you I really don't remember much.My parents are immigrants and I am the first born child They came at a time when Germany was still like.. being "cancelled" by America. My dad's experience as an older child in America was pretty bad. His sisters were babies and he was a young teen. When he started his own family he "cancelled" germany in his own house too. Didn't learn the culture, language, nothing. I have a rouladen recipe, an eclectic mix of swear words/ethnic/racial slurs, and phrases that usually translated to something threatening. His sisters taught their children all the german things and so they're bilingual. I feel cheated. I know why, but it still hurts. I roll with what I get.