SC - lebkuchen

[Huette von Ahrens]

- --- Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net> wrote:
> Huette said:
> > And it is not difficult to make.  There were
> several
> > recipes for lebkuchen in Sabina Welserin, if I
> > remember correctly.
> 
> Ok, so what is this "lebkuchen"? And some recipes
> from period
> sources would be nice.

Stefan,

Here is what you asked for

Huette

+++++++++++

>From "Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin", 1553. 

151 To bake good Lebkuchen 

Take first a pound of sugar, a quart of clear honey,
not quite a third quart of flour, take two and a half
ounces of cinnamon, one and a half ounces of cloves,
two ounces of cardamom. Cut the other spices as
small as possible, the cinnamon sticks are ground as
coarsely as possible. Also put ginger therein and put
the sugar into the honey, let it cook together, put
the flour in a trough, pour the cardamom into it
first,
afterwards the ginger and the other spices. 

163 To make Nurnberger 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. 


164 To make a large Nurnberger Lebkuchen 

Take a quart of honey and a quarter pound of sugar,
prepare it as for the smaller Lebkuchen, take one
quarter pound of flour and then the spices as follows:
one half ounce of cinnamon, one ounce of cloves,
one and three fourths ounces of nutmeg, four ounces of
ginger, one fourth ounce of mace. Stir it carefully
around, afterwards roll the dough out somewhat. Bake
it as for the smaller Lebkuchen. 




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Thousands of Stores.  Millions of Products.  All in one place.
Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================