SC - Progress report on Lebkuchen

[Bonne of Traquair]

>The modern Lebkuchen I've come across are all fairly soft. Bear
>
> > The modern recipes I have seen for Lebkuchen all refer to a
> > spicy hard
> > cookie.  > Kateryn

Not having tried making medieval or modern, I'll interject that when reading 
the recipes, I expect the sort of sugary and hard texture that softens as it 
absorbs humidity in storage.   So, in dealing with what stage of sugar for 
the medieval, I don't think I'd take it as high as hard crack.  At the 
soft-ball stage the sugar will be re-crystallizing as it cools, making a 
fairly hard cookie.  But, the cookie will soften in storage and easily break 
down in liquid like the sauce or fig pudding recipes.  If you take it to 
hard-crack, won't the result be like hard candy, and hard to integrate into 
the other recipe?

This two-cents might be useless, but there you are.

Bonne
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