Lebkuchen (Spice Cookies) For My Mama

My Mom is of German descent and has a handful of food memories connected to her childhood. The most powerful memory, is of a cookie known as lebkuchen. This means heart cookie and although I know you can see the cookie in this shape on occasion, it is usually a round largish cookie which is found around the holidays. They originated in Nuremberg and my mother quietly longs for them periodically.

I remember as a child that a friend of the family brought her back a tin of these cookies and I was allowed to have the tiniest bite. These were mommy’s cookies and that was that.

As an adult, I realized that I could try to duplicate my Mom’s deepest desire. So I searched and searched but till the internet really “kicked in” could not find a proper recipe. I finally found one by Jeffrey Morgenthaler in Food and Wine * that seemed to be truly the type of cookie I was looking for, loaded with spiciness and an icing to top it. Of course, I made some changes but my Momma was truly pleased and I got the compliment of her swiping the tin of cookies I gave her and taking them home with her despite her saying, “they taste almost the same!” Ha, from the Momma this is high praise indeed. Onward! A note I wish to add, these cookies are eggless, that’s just how they roll.

Start with soy/heavy cream and add the vinegar to the pyrex cup or bowl and let stand till it thickens up. This can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 30. It gets thicker the longer it stands but 10 minutes will do.

Set aside. Next, take the candied orange peel, and before you ask, no you cannot substitute regular orange peel, it will completely change the taste and it will NOT be lebkuchen, no cheating! and chop it up into small chunks.

I didn’t cut them so fine since I deliberately wanted the pop of taste in the chunks, but you can make them smaller if you wish.

Then in a medium bowl, mix the flours, spices, orange peel and baking soda and salt and stir till combined. Set aside.

Now is a good time to preheat your oven to a rather lower temp than usual of 325 F, it’s important since the molasses in the cookies can make them burn at higher temps.

In the bowl of a mixer, put the cubed softened marg, molasses and brown sugar.

Mix till smooth and thick, scraping down the sides with a spatula to make sure all the marg is properly incorporated.

Add the soy cream thickened mix and beat. It will be fairly liquidy, don’t let that disturb you, it should be.

again scrape sides and bottom of bowl with spatula to ensure all is properly mixed. Finally, add your premixed dry ingredients etc. to the liquidy mixture.

Beat just till combined.

As you see this is a nice thick cookie dough, but a bit sticky.

Take your Oxo ice cream scooper or 1/4 cup measure (yes, it’s meant to be a large cookie) and scoop the cookie dough onto the parchment lined baking sheets, evenly spaced, about 3 inches apart to give cookies room to spread.

Then, wet your fingers (keep doing it so the sticky cookie dough won’t stick) and gently pat the dough into circles like so:

Prepare the cookies this way till you get approximately 16-18 cookies depending on whether you make them a bit bigger or smaller.

Place your baking sheets in the preheated (325 F remember!) oven and after about 7 and 1/2 minutes turn the sheets halfway around close oven door and bake about another 7 and 1/2 minutes (or 6 minutes if they look dark). Remove from oven and let cool in the baking sheet on wire racks.

When cold, gently unstick from parchment paper, either by hand or with spatula. Next prepare the icing. Sift your confectioner’s sugar into a bowl big enough to dip the cookies, although I felt it was too much topping and in the end used the back of a spoon to smooth icing onto the cookies and it worked a treat.

The icing with 2 tablespoons soy cream:

As you can plainly see, it’s too thick so keep adding soy cream till it looks like this:

It’s a glossy, thickish but liquidy icing. Remember, you want it for a thin coating on the cookie. To those who want to skip this step (too much sugar or whathaveyou,) DON’T! It is an integral part of the taste of the cookie, save your sugar calories elsewhere. Relative to other cookie recipes, there isn’t all that much sugar in the ingredients, be calm. So dip or shmear on the tops of the cookies and return to the parchment paper to let the sugar coating harden.

Once the icing hardens, try to eat just one. I know they are biggish, but they are totally addictive if you like a spicy cookie (and I do, my SIL Diane does and Mama oh Mama, was in a complete tizzy, I promise you 🙂 ). Chewy, spicy, orangey, eat them with your coffee, tea or just as is, they will take you to spice heaven.

Lebkuchen (Spice Cookies) For My Mama

1 cup soy cream (4.5% fat)
1 tablespoon vinegar
4 cups flour, you can use all purpose or as I did, white spelt flour
1/2 cup almond flour
4 tablespoons minced candied orange peel
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup margarine, at room temperature, cut into cubes
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

Icing:

1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
3-5 tablespoons soy cream

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

In a bowl or Pyrex measuring cup, stir the cream and vinegar together and set aside and let stand about 10 minutes to 30 minutes, until thickened.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour with the almond flour, minced candied orange peels, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer beat the brown sugar with the softened, cubed margarine and molasses at medium speed until thick and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl with spatula to make sure it’s fully incorporated. Add the thickened soy cream and beat until smooth. It will look fairly liquidy, that’s fine, scrape also to make sure it’s fully mixed. Add the flour mixture and beat at low speed just until combined.

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a 2-ounce ice cream scoop (like my Oxo scooper) or 1/4-cup measure, scoop the dough into mounds on the parchment covered sheets, spacing them about 3 inches apart, giving them the space so they don’t expand into one another. Wet your fingers and gently flatten each mound into a round cookie – but don’t oversmush it.

Bake the cookies for about 13-15 minutes, until lightly browned; if baking both sheets at the same time, rotate the baking sheets after 7 or so minutes, switching the bottom to the top and turning around and baking another 7 minutes to make sure the cookies bake evenly. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer with the parchment paper to a wire rack and let cool completely. Gently loosen cookies either by hand or with spatula, but leave on parchment paper and on rack. You will be dipping into the icing and the paper will catch any mess.

Icing:

In a small, wide bowl (enough to dip in), whisk the confectioners’ sugar with the soy cream, tablespoon by tablespoon till the consistency of thickish cream but they are dippable. (See pic above) Dip the top of each cookie in the glaze, letting the excess drip back into the bowl OR use the back of a teaspoon and dip in mixture and smooth all over top of cookie and replace on parchment paper. Let stand until the glaze hardens, about 10 minutes. These keep well in a tin and also freeze well. The longer they sit, the more you taste the spice. However, they will go like wildfire. Wait and see!

• original recipe https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/lebkuchen