Lebkuchen, Page 122, 2nd Column, 2nd Recipe Down

My Better Homes and Gardens Cook Books in order of age.

Because I was having problems picking a recipe, this marks my first week of picking a recipe at random.  Also as part of this cookie experimenting, I now have 6 different copies of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book to cross compare with.  I already had 3 and have added 3 others finding old used copies and getting the latest version.  So now I have ones from 1936, 1953, 1976, 1981, 1989, and 2010. 

First of all Lebkuchen is another traditional German cookie which is also often called “Honey Cakes.”  You can read more here at Wikipedia.  This recipe required me to buy something I’ve never bought before – “chopped, mixed candied fruits and peels.”  I probably would never have picked this recipe out by choice.

Chopped candied fruit and peels.

First I read through the recipe, made sure I had all the needed ingredients and equipment.  This is a rolled cookie that would have to have time to chill as well.  But before I made it I wanted to see how this recipe had changed over time.

The recipe from my 1976 book is identical to this one for German Lebkuchen on allrecipes.com.  Next I went back to my 1953 book, there was no molasses or nutmeg, an additional egg, regular sugar instead of brown and slightly different proportions of ingredients, and only candied lemon and orange peels.  In addition there was no icing applied afterwards as well. 

Main ingredients besides flour, brown sugar, etc.

Next was to see what the 1936 recipe book contained, and this diverged even further.  Even more eggs, a much larger proportion of sugar to flour,  the almonds that were added were to be ground, and the fruit this time was Citron, also called for to be ground.  A friend at work and I puzzled over this a bit, but finally concluded that they must mean the candied peels of Citron ground as in a meat grinder to get smaller pieces.  There was no leavening either, so I’m not sure how cakey this could be, and it was limited to 2 spices rather than the four from the 1976 recipe.  This time it was only cinnamon, but also cardamom which was not in the other recipes.  Also this recipe was a drop cookie rather than rolled which seemed at odds with the history of the cookie.

Looking forward the Lebkuchen recipe appears in my 1981 book and is identical to the 1976 recipe, but then is absent in all future editions I have.  So clearly a cookie that has fallen out of favor it seems.  I had never had it in my life, so I was looking forward to the making, and the tasting to see what it would be like.

The egg, brown sugar, molasses and honey
and my new mixer blade!

First off was to beat the egg, I used my new mixer blade that has built in scrapers along the edges, should be less of a problem having stuff build up on the sides of the mixing bowl for my KitchenAid mixer now.  But they are a little noisy.

Then the sugar and the honey and molasses next.  This produced a syrupy mix, and I realized for the first time, there is no butter or shortening in this recipe.  No wonder they say to grease the cookie sheet!

Before I measured out the dry ingredients I wanted to make sure I had the cut up further the chopped candied fruit and peels and measure out 1/2 cup.  How to do this...these things were a sticky mess, so I though maybe the food processor would do the trick.  Alas, it chopped it up so fine parts of the fruit now looked like beads, and the shredder attachment didn't work out at all.  So I had to resort to chopping it up by hand.

Next was to get all the dry ingredients together.  Anytime a recipe calls for more than 2 cups of flour, I can easily lose track.  When I was making the Springerle I had to remeasure at least twice because I lost count of the 4 cups of flour I was supposed to use.  So I kept careful track and then added in all the spices and the baking soda.  I was ready!

The finished dough, sticky beyond belief!

I slowly mixed in all the dry ingredients, and it was definitely giving my mixer a workout.  Now I could smell all the spices I'd used.  When I lifted the mixer blade out, the dough was extremely sticky.  I scraped as much off the beater blade as I could, then I mixed in the slivered almonds and the minced fruit.  That was quite a chore!  Here is the resulting cookie dough: 

Now the dough had to chill for at least 3 hours, I was hoping that it would firm up reasonably, it seemed too soft for a roll out dough, but I was going to find out.

While the dough chilled I made the icing.  I had just gotten a micro plane to get cirtus zest, so this was my first chance to try it out.  I really should have taken a picture.  It was quite amazing, if you zest any fruits on a regular basis, you'll want this tool.  It produced fine fluffy zest that looked beautiful.  I mixed together the ingredients for the glaze and also put that in the refrigerator.

The dough hand patted down and ready for rolling.

Three hours later and the dough was supposed to be ready.  I put an ample amount of flour on the counter and turn out the dough and patted it together with well floured hands.  Although it was still quite sticky, enough flour and I could work with it.

I rolled it out to about 1/4 inch thick.  I think I definitely want to get some of those add ons for rolling pins that will give you an exact height across all your dough.  I can never get it even.  Once I was done rolling it out, I attempted to cut out the 3.5x2 in rectangles recommended.  This turned out to be harder than expected, but I shouldn't have been surprised.

Ready for cutting cookies!

The slivered almonds and sometimes the fruit impeded the pizza slicer I was using.  It took some vigorous repeat rolling and pressure to cut through some of it.  But that wouldn't be my only problem.  As I'd rolled out the dough, there was not enough flour underneath it in some areas and when I tried to lift the cut rectangles, they were seriously stuck to the counter.  

The cut cookies.

With a little work I eventually got them onto the cookie sheet and started baking.  The smell was amazing.  It took three cookie sheets to hold them all and eventually I got them all baked and on the cooling rack.

Ready for baking!

The house smelled great and I was curious to see how they tasted, but I wanted to let them cool.  Then I remembered - the glaze!!  I quickly got out the lemon glaze which was to be applied while they were still warm and got them coated.  But I need to work on using it evenly, I ran short on the last few cookies.

The baked Lebkuchen.

The finished Lebkuchen!

The resulting cookie has a dense texture, very chewy, and very very strong in flavor, stronger than gingerbread I've had.  The nuts were nice, but I'm still not sure about those candied fruits and peels.  Some of those had a pronounced flavor I can't say I cared for.  We'll see how these go over at work on Monday.  

Ginger Shortbread

To make a treat for my vegetarian friends at work, I tried making ginger shortbread.  A recipe I made up.  Not sure that it's something I would make again, but we'll see how they go over too.

Lessons Learned: 

Cutting up candied fruit and peels is a pain.  Is it really worth it for this recipe?  Maybe try without next time.

Use more flour under the dough when rolling out, and don't forget to put back on the apron when you start rolling out the dough.  I got coated in flour.

Don't forget the icing!