Lebkuchen: German Christmas Cookies

 

The 2024 Riddle/Rice Christmas gathering

Christmas for us is all about being together with family. That usually translates into a lot of games and eating and laughter. As our family grows, we add more people and more traditions get added to the never-ending treat buffet that the kitchen counter becomes at Christmas time. One of the best additions to our family, (in my opinion) has been my sister-in-love Heike. Heike makes sure that we always have some German treats at Christmas. Her favorite German Christmas treat is Lebkuchen. Usually, we buy an obscene amount of Lebkuchen when they come out in Aldi or Lidl in December, so there are always a few bags around for the holidays. This year, we all dropped the ball. Hoping for a Christmas miracle, Heike and I headed over to Lidl after Christmas-Eve service (I know...super late) and were distressed to find that they only had two sad little packages of Lebkuchen that looked like they had been sat upon. Emergency!

Christmas family game time and puppy snuggling

 I came across this recipe a while ago, and thought it would be fun to try making my own Lebkuchen at some point. This year, it was a matter of necessity! I pulled together the ingredients and tried Lebkuchen at home...and we will NEVER go back. The homemade Lebkuchen were delicious and I am excited to try them again.

Everyone got elf ears from Uncle David 😄

For the uniniciated: Lebkuchen is a spiced German Christmas cookie, traditionally covered in icing or chocolate. The dough is very soft and includes almond meal, warm spices and sharp lemon and orange rind. The dough needs to sit for a while, so it is a recipe you can make at the beginning of the day, forget and come back to later. The other unique thing about Lebkuchen is that they taste better the longer they age. They should be stored in a closed container, I have seen it suggested that you place an orange peel in the container to enhance flavor. I don't know too much about that...the cookies did not last more than 5 days here. BUT, the last cookie we at last night (5 days later) was way tastier than the first day, and those were pretty tasty by themselves. We may try another batch  and try to keep them longer to see how it goes. My brother-in-law, Doug said that he heard that Lebkuchen taste the best after they are aged for 6 months!! I am willing to give that experiment a go...for the sake of Science of course.

My little elf-helper

A few tips:

-the dough is VERY soft. It should be rolled out in small batches on flour-dusted parchment. I found that pushing together the floury scraps from my first roll-out with another scoop of fresh dough helped keep it from sticking, and helped keep the dough from getting over-floured in the roll-out process. It is also helpful to have a little pile of flour on your work surface to dust your cookie cutters between cuts to avoid sticking.

-Don't roll it too thin. Lebkuchen should be about an inch thick. They are not going to spread on the pan, but if you roll them too thin, you will loose the traditional moist cake texture you are looking for.

-Be patient and don't rush. This recipe takes time, and takes breaks. Embrace it! Take some rest with your dough. Play a game with your family while your icing cools on your cookies. Let the process remind you to slow down a bit during this busy season and find joy in some restful moments.

-Dairy free substitutions work well with this recipe. We tried vegan sour cream in place of the butter. 

Glazing the Lebkuchen

Lebkuchen

Cookie Ingredients:

1/2 cup honey

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

1 egg

1 tsp lemon zest

1 tsp orange zest

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 3/4 cup flour

1 cup ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Glaze Ingredients:

1 cup icing sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract or rum

Directions:

1. In a mixer, combine honey dark brown sugar, and butter until well combined. Add egg, zest, spices, baking powder, baking soda and vanilla. When ingredients are well combined, mix in the flour and almonds. When the ingredients are well combined, cover the dough with a tea towel and let it rest in the bowl for at least an hour and up to overnight.  *rest time*

2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare your cookie sheets with parchment or silicone mats. 

3. Roll out and cut the cookies: start with about a third of the dough. The dough will be very sticky. It is helpful to use floured parchemnt to avoid sticking. Roll the dough to about 1-inch thickness. Cut with a well-foured cookie cutter and move the cut dough to the prepared sheet. Round-ish shapes work best: heart, star, bell etc... Cookies can be placed about an inch apart, they will not spread much when baked.

4. Bake 12 minutes

5. While cookies bake, make your glaze. Whisk together the sugar, lemon juice and vanilla or rum. 

6. Remove the cookies from the oven. Allow them to cool for about 5 minutes, then glaze them while they are still warm. You can decorate with sliced almonds or colored sugar while the glaze is still wet. Allow the glaze to dry and enjoy. If you like more glaze you can glaze them twice.

7. Store dried cookies in a sealed container or tin. Store with an orage peel to enhance flavor. Cookies can be stored for quite a long time and apparently they get better with age. It does seem like Lebkuchen have a lot to teach us.

Fig Custard Cake

 

Two years ago I ordered two fig trees from Baker Creek. They came as little sticks in dirt. I was not sure if they would grow here in Boston. As an experiment, I planted one in the yard and one in the greenhouse. Both have grown huge, and year 3....WE HAVE FIGS! They are so tasty! We inevitably end up eating the first few right off the tree because we are greedy. They are fantastic with some goat cheese. But the thing with figs is that you really need to eat them right away if you want to experience the magic, and once you pick them they need to be used. So on days when there are a lot of figs that ripen all at once we bake fun things.

This is our second crop of figs of 2024 coming in...I am waiting so patiently!!

This cake is made in a springform pan. It is a moist, dense cake punctuated by bursts of fig. We liked it a lot.

Yard garden haul for the day: figs for the cake, jalapenos, banana peppers, black cherry tomatoes and a chrysanthemum melon

Fig Custard Cake

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons melted butter, cooled

1 cup flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 large eggs

1 egg yolk

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/4 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons dark rum

2 teaspoons vanilla

8 figs, halved

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch springform pan.

2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. 

3. With a mixer, whip the eggs and sugar until they are light and frothy. With the mixer on low, combine the sour cream, butter, rum and vanilla until completely incorporated. Add the flour mixture a few tablespoons at a time with mixer on low until just incorporated. Do not over-mix.

4. Add the batter to the prepared pan and chill in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. 

5. Arrange the fig halves on top of the chilled batter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake 55-60 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

6. Cool for 10 minutes then remove from the pan and finish cooling on a cooling rack. 

Sweet & Spicy Zucchini Relish

 I kept the name of this recipe because most people will be familiar with zucchini as the main ingredient. We didn't grow traditional zucchini this year or use it in this relish, we grew trombonchino!! 

Meet trombonchino!

Trombonchino is an Italian zuchini variety that grows a super long seedless fruit with a smaller bulbus end that contains seeds. I love this variety. It grows prolificly on our garden trellises all summer and into the fall. I find it is heartier and less prone to diseases than the traditional zucchini. It is all the best parts of the zucchini without the tendancy to get hard skin and hard seeds in a day if you forget to pick it. If you leave them on the vine for a very long time, they can get brown skinned and hard like a butternut squash, but that takes a lot more waiting than we can handle. Like I already said, it is super prolific so we have come up with a TON of ways to prepare it. We love it grilled, it does great in veggie lasagna, sauces, stir fries, and bakes. Basically, any way that you would use zucchini, you can use trombonchino. That being said, it makes a great sweet and spicy relish. You can use zucchini...if you want, but a trombonchino is pretty much always better.

Sweet & Spicy Trombonchino Relish

Ingredients:

2 1/2 pounds trombonchino squash

3 purple onions

2 yellow bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

3 jalapeno peppers

3 tbsp salt

6 cups apple cider vinegar

3 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ground mustard

1 sachets of pickling spice (1-2 tablespoons)

Directions:

1. Using a food processor or grater finely chop the zucchini, onions, and peppers. Mix them together in a larg bowl and toss with 3 tablsepoons of salt. Let the veggie mixture sit while you prepare the brine. 

2. In a large, heavy bottomed stock pot, combine the vinegar, sugar and spices. For the pickling spice, you want the falvor, but you don't want the seeds and bay leaf pieces in your relish. You can use a sachet bag, or a tea strainer to infuse the flavors. I have a mana-tea, which floated hapily in the brine to infuse our relish. 😄

3. Bring the brine to a boil, then add the veggies. Bring the whole mixture back up to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 45 minutes to cook the veggies. After 45 minutes, check the consistency. Continue to reduce until the relish has the solid/liquid ratio that you desire. 

One big quart for the refrigerator and a small jar that wasn't quite full. the small jar was eaten on the firsd day. 

4. At this point you can put your relish into cans and put them in the refrigerator to make refrigerator relish, or you can hot water process them. This relish processes for 15 minutes.  For more information on hot water bath canning check HERE. The recipe makes about 20 cups of relish.

Tofu Gnocchi

 

Recently we have been experimenting with adding more non-meat protien to our diet. I saw this recipe for tofu gnocchi, which uses tofu, chickpea flour & nutritional yeast, all great sources of protien, and thought we would try it. My expectations were low. I love gnocchi and I doubted that this recipe could replicate the texture of the original potato gnocchi. So I was SUPER surprised when these tofu gnocchi turned out fantastic!! The texture is spot on. They are tasty, and easier to make than boiling and ricing potatoes like the traditional version. (plus, way more protien)

We used the tofu gnocchi in a veggie pesto sauce with ricotta, and broied it to brown the ricotta. (also a great source of non-meat protien) You could use any of your favorite pasta sauces. The recipe makes a lot of gnocchi! We used about 2/3 of the recipe and froze the rest for later. Just a note...frozen gnocchi can be put directly into the pot of boiling water and cooked as normal.

This recipe was tried by my budding professional chef. Keep an eye out...you may see this recipe on the menu of a local restaurant soon!

Tofu Gnocchi

Ingredients:

330 gr firm tofu

170 gr chickpea flour

3 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 tbsp olive oil

pinch of salt

Directions:

1. In a blender or food processor fitted with the blade attachement, process the tofu until it forms a smooth paste. 

3. In a medium bowl, combine the tofu paste, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, olive oil and salt. Start incorporating  with a fork. When the dough is coming together, turn the dough out onto a floured surface andknead  gently until the dough comes together and is smooth.

4. Shape your gnocchi. Shaping gnicchi isn't hard, it just takes practice. It really helps to have someone show you and explain it step by step. Please check out this VIDEO with all the info you need.

5. While you are shaping your dough, bring a large stockpot of water to boil. Also, have your sauce prepared before you start cooking your gnocchi. You will want to put the cooked gnocchi directly into the pan of sauce. Cooked gnocchi will stick together into a large gluey mess if they don't go directly into a sauce. 

6. Cook your gnocchi. When your dough is shaped, and your water is boiling and your sauce is ready, gently drop a handful of gnocchi into biling water. You will know the gnocchi are cooked when they rise up to the surface. This usually only takes about 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, remove cooked, floating gnocchi and place them in the awaiting sauce. Cook whatever gnocchi you need and freeze the rest. Enjoy!

Stuffed Mogogo Squash

 This year we grew something new...Mogogo squash!! Mogogo is a Guatamalan zucchini variety. It is best picked when it is the size of a softball. Similar to zucchini, mogogos have thin outer flesh when they are small, but get harder and have larger seeds the longer they stay on the vine. Mogogos are sweeter than zucchini and have a creamier texture. We love them grilled. We had a couple that got too big while we were away on vacation, so we stuffed them. Stuffing is always a good idea when squash get too big, you scoop out all the hard seeds, and the long cooking process softens the harder flesh and skin. Just like making soup, stuffed veggies can be a vehicle for eating pretty much anything you have in your kitchen. Below is a recipe that reflects what was in our kitchen, but you can taylor the method to the ingredients at your disposal.

One of our first mogogo squash (just the right size)

Stuffed Mogogo Squash

Ingredients:

2 Large mogogo squash

1lb ground turkey

1 cup rice cooked

1 lb spinach

2 tomatoes chopped

1 onion chopped

1 bell pepper chopped

3 garlic cloves chopped

2 tablespoons fresh oregono

1 small chili pepper diced

1 egg

Salt & Pepper

Olive oil

1 cup shredded mozzarella

Directions:

1. Cut the stem tops off of your squash and scoop out the seeds and soft flesh then put the prepared squash in a baking pan. Season the empty squash with salt & pepper. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, combine ground turkey, rice, spinach tomatoes, onion, pepper garlic oregono, chili & egg. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Stuff the two squash with the filling, drizzle with olive oil, cover with foil and put it in the oven. Bake for 60-70 minutes. After 60-70 minutes, check that the squash is thoroughly cooked by piercing it with a sharp knife. If it goes in like butter, your squash is done. 

4. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and return to the oven uncovered for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted. 

Beer Batter for Seafood

The feast

 Last week our family gathered for vacation on Cape Cod. The day vacation ended was Dad Riddle's 70th birthday. 

Happy 70th Dad!

We decided to celebrate him in a very New England fashion with a seafood feast. Doug grilled shrimp, Joseph prepared a bass Aaron caught, he wowed us with seared scallops with herb butter, we steamed lobsters, prepared crabcakes and fried some fresh New England cod. I know frying fish isn't the most healthy way to eat fish but DAAAAAANG it is the most tasty. Don't worry, we made a salad too.

We decided to use a beer batter. This recipe is perfection. Super easy to prepare, it coats the fish lightly and crisps up well. There are a few tips in the recipe that will make sure your beer battered fish turns out great. (marked with an *) Be sure to read those carefully. We have used cod and halibut with this recipe, both are meaty white fish, but this beer batter recipe will work for shellfish, thin veggies or tofu as well.

Beer Batter for Seafood:

Ingredients:

2lbs white fish

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp paprika

2 tsp seasoned salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 1/3 cups beer (a lighter summer beer works well for fish)

Vegetable or canola oil for frying

Directions:

1. Prepare your fish. You want to cut your fish into smaller portions, 1x3 inches works well. *If your fish portions are too big, it will cool down your fry oil and not cook well. Pat your fish dry with paper towel and season with salt and pepper.

My little chef!

2. In a heavy bottomed pot, dutch oven or fryer, heat 3 inches of oil to 375 degrees. 

3. While your oil heats, make your fry batter. Combine the flour, garlic powder, paprika, seasoned salt, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Whisk in the egg to combine, then whisk in the beer until the batter forms and is no longer lumpy. 

*I have found that this recipe requires 3-4 tablespoons of extra flour to get to the perfect coating consistency. It may depend on the beer you choose. The batter should resemble a thin pancake batter. It should just coat your finger if you dip it in the batter, and a few drips should drip off. It should not be runny, but it also should not be as thick as a cake or muffin batter.

4. *Test that your oil is hot by either using a candy thermometer or dripping a bit of batter in the oil. If the batter test bubbles up to the surface right away you are looking good. When your oil is ready, dip your fish pieces one at a time in the batter and carefully drop in the oil. The fish is ready when it has turned a beautiful golden brown...3-5 minutes. 

*if your fish sinks to the bottom and sticks, or your batter comes off in the oil or it takes a really long time...that is a good indication that your oil is not hot enough

* be aware that if you are using a gas stove, drafts can impact your burner's effectiveness. 

5. Carefully remove your cooked fish with a slotted spoon and let it cool on a wire rack. 

*The wire cooling rack preserves the crispyness of the batter while the fish cools. Cooling on a paper towel will result in soggy fish.

6. Enjoy with tarter sauce :)

Exploring our Culinary History

 Food in the context of family is often more than just sustinance. It is celebration, care, love, joy, comfort, or mourning. The table is a place where people gather, and a meal prepared with time and love opens the mind, loostens the tongue, breaks down the walls and creates space for connection.

Throughout my life many people have cooked for me, my mother and grandmother most often. 

Last year we moved my mother from my childhood home in New Jersey to California. In the process of packing up her things, she packed a box for me filled with the recipe boxes of my elders. I have my mother's recipe box, her mother's recipe box, and full notebook from Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, my great grandmother's recipe box, and my father's mother's recipe box. 

Looking through these hand written cards and magazing clippings feels sacred. It is fun to see the cultural trends that have changed, and some themes that tell me more about these chefs. My Nana really liked dates, there are so many recipes in her box that use dates. I would never have known that about her. 

I also found a hand-written recipe for Dandelion Wine from my dad's grandmother! When I started makeing dandelion wine he told me that he remembered going with his grandmother to pick dandelions for wine and that he hated the job because it took so many flowers. I guess as a kid he didn't get to taste how amazing Dandelion Wine is so he would not have appreciated all the long harvesting work via the end product. The fun thing is...her recipe is the same as mine! What a treasure to have that connection. 

My great-grandmother Campbell was super trendy and progressive, and while her box includes a good amount of dinners involving canned soup, she was ahead of her time with her salad recipes. No joke, she was using avocado in the 70's way before avocado toast was cool. 

Gotta love the typewriter throwback

I also found recipes for homemade hard  soapusing beef tallow and lye. 😳 We probably will skip this one.

Thanks Mrs. Davis

As we have looked through these, the boys have had to learn how to disciper cursive. 😄 Some of them are hard to read anyway because they are scrawled on the back of dry cleaning receipts or on napkins. Others look like they were carefully written in pen and ink. I can't imagine how old these ones are.

It is also surprising how many are lacking important details like pan size, oven temp and cooking time!

Where was this when I was cooking for Boston Project?

It has been fun to explore these small family time capsules. The boys and I have decided that we are going to work our way through them and try a sampling of the recipes. Some recipes we chose because we know they will be delicious: sweet potato pudding, spice cake and lemon coconut cookies made it on the list easy. Others made it on the list because I have no idea what we are making and how it will turn out: spiced grapes & tomato mincemeat will be fun. We are working through 2-3 recipes a month, so keep an eye out for some fun coming your way soon. The boys are also hoping to add a video component. More info on that as it develops. 

We are heading on a tasty adventure, it should be fun!

...even if Pennywise Pot Pie sounds terrifying!!!