pscot (12,883 posts) Mon Dec 17, 2012, 11:29 AM
Lebkuchen
My German inlaws used to send us tins of Nurnberger Lebkuchen every year about this time. These days we have to fend for ourselves. This recipe is from King Arthur Flour and it makes an excellent Lebkuchen. The beauty part is that you can do it all in the food processor. Start with the blanched almond ground pretty fine. I tripled the amount.
This dough has to age for at least 12 hours. I let mine sit in the fridge for 2 days. The recipe says to roll out and bake as a solid sheet, then cut into bar cookies, but it's a very sticky dough and messy to work with. I spooned it out onto a long sheet of plastic wrap and formed it into a log about 2 inches in diameter. To bake, I cut the log into rounds and put them on pachment paper. They flatten out as you slice them. Just reshape them as you lay them out. Leave space. They spread out. I got 24 cookies on 2 sheet pans, each about 3 inches in diameter. I made a glaze of powdered sugar and OJ.
These things keep a long time in a sealed container, and improve with age.
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
2 teaspoons each lemon peel and orange peel, or 1/4 teaspoon each lemon oil and orange oil
2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup finely chopped blanched almonds
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
3 rounded tablespoons diced crystallized ginger, finely ground*
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/lebkuchen-recipe
cbayer (114,968 posts) Mon Dec 17, 2012, 12:21 PM
1. Such a classic and it looks pretty easy.
pscot (12,883 posts) Mon Dec 17, 2012, 12:55 PM
3. It's basically an almond delight sweetened with honey and bound with flour. Sort of a German rahat loukum. It's a piece of cake.
OffWithTheirHeads (8,644 posts) Mon Dec 17, 2012, 12:22 PM
2. King Arthur Flour. Made in the U.S.A. And employee owned
Since 1790!
Why can't they eat normal stuff like pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie or any number of other things?
A funny thing about the effete cooking and baking primitives is that they all seem to have either European spouses, or at least European parents or in-laws.
As if it's a mark of distinction.
While some claim American spouses, they never seem to have American parents or in-laws.
Doesn't surprise me. You know one dessert that would really fit them? Fruitcake.
Lebkuchen = gingerbread, or at least what passes for gingerbread in Germany. I'll stick with springerles.
Of course, I'm not bashing European cooking.
I just think it's silly to believe having a European spouse, or parents, or in-laws is distinctive.
I take it nobody knows what lebkuchen is?
When they cook it they press it down, hard, until every last drop of honey is pressed out.
Gingerbread sounds to plebeian for the DUmmies.
By the way, it recently looks as if German's replaced French as the language of cuisine for the cooking and baking primitives.