SC - Thanks for Garlecky Chicken

[maddie teller-kook]

Cariadoc and Allison have both metioned Lebkuchen. I'd like to shine a
little light on the topic. Lebkuchen was also know as Lebzelten in period
and was indeed baked and crisp. In urban areas there were Lebkuchners or
Lebzeltners who specialized in baking this particular dish. In
_Kunstgeschichte des Backwerks_, edited by Hans Juergen Hansen, there is a
woodcut (dated 1520) showing a Lebzeltner at work, pulling the finished
cakes out of the oven. I think Nuremburg was especially famous for their
Lebkuchen.

They rolled out dough was pressed into round or rectangular oiled molds
made of clay or wood that were decorated with designs. In _Kunstgeschichte
des Backwerks_ there are photos of several molds. They remind me of the
ceramic molds I've seen people use for shortbread. I think the used to sell
them at Rolling Pin and similar stores. These were also used for fancy
marzipan.

This was baked sweet of flour and honey (sugar was added late in period but
didn't totally replace the sugar). Spices added could be cinnamon, mace,
ginger, cloves, anise, pepper, and coriander. I haven't ever seen a recipe
with the dried fruit and nuts called for in modern recipes or with the
sugar glaze that some recipes also call for. Other than that, the modern
unleavened Lebkuchen recipes do resemble ones eaten in period.

Kuchenmeyserey, Sabina Welser, and Philipinne Welser all have Lebkuchen
recipes. The one that follows is from Sabina Welser and the most detailed
one I've found.

Valoise

163   To make Nürnberger Lebkuchen

        Take one quart of honey, put it into a large pan, skim it well and
let it boil a good while. Put one and a half pounds of sugar into it and
stir it continually with a wooden spatula and let it cook for a while, as
long as one cooks an egg, pour it hot into a quarter pound of flour, stir
it around slowly and put the described spices in the dough, stir it around
slowly and not too long; take one and a half ounces of cinnamon sticks, one
and a half ounces of nutmeg, three fourths of an ounce of cloves, three
ounces of ginger, a pinch of mace, and chop or grind each one separately so
that they are not too small, the cinnamon sticks, especially, should be
coarsely ground. And when you have put the spices in the dough, then let
the dough set for as long as one needs to hard boil eggs. Dip the hands in
flour and take a small heap of dough, make balls out of it, weigh them so
that one is as heavy as the others, roll them out with a rolling pin, and
spread them out smoothly by hand, the smoother the prettier. After that dip
the mold in rose water and open it up. Take four ounces of dough for one
Lebkuchen. Be careful and get no flour in the molds or else they will be no
good, but on the board you can put flour so that they do not stick to it.
Let them set overnight. And when you take them to the baker, then see to it
that you have another board that is thoroughly sprinkled with flour, so
that it is very thickly covered. Put the board with its covering of flour
into the oven so that the board is completely heated, the hotter the
better. Take it out afterwards and lay the Lebkuchen on top, so that none
touches the other, put them in the oven, let them bake and look after them
frequently. At first they will become soft as fat. If you take hold of them
you can feel it well. And when they become entirely dry, then take them out
and turn the board around, so that the front part goes into the back of the
oven. Let it remain a short while, then take it out. Take a small broom,
brush the flour cleanly away from the underside of the Lebkuchen and lay
the Lebkuchen, in the mean time, on the other board, until you have brushed
off the Lebkuchen, one after the other, so that there is no more flour on
the bottoms. Afterwards sweep the flour very cleanly from off the board.
Lay the Lebkuchen on top of it again, so that the bottom is turned to the
top. Take a bath sponge, dip it in rose water, squeeze it out again, wash
the flour from the bottoms of the Lebkuchen. Be careful that you do not
leave any water on the board, then they would stick to it. Afterwards put
the board with the Lebkuchen again in the oven, until the bottoms rise
nicely and become hard, then take the board out again. See to it that two
or three [people] are by the board, who can quickly turn the Lebkuchen
over, or else they will stick. Afterwards take rose water and wash them on
top with it as you have done on the underside. Put them in the oven again,
let them become dry, carry them home and move them around on the board, so
that they do not stick. And when they have completely cooled, then lay them
eight or ten, one upon the other, wrap them in paper and store them in a
dry place, see that no draft comes therein, then they remain crisp.


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