Lebkuchen

It's Christmastime and that means one thing: Lebkuchen! My friend Susan recently said to me, "I've been meaning to ask you -- what does the title of your blog mean? What is Lebkuchen?"

Lebkuchen is a traditional German product baked for Christmas, somewhat resembling soft gingerbread. Similar cookies have a history that extends back to the Egyptians, but the style of the traditional Lebkuchen was probably invented by medieval monks in Germany in the 13th century. The most famous Lebkuchen are those made in Nürnberg (Nuremberg). In fact, I tasted my first Lebkuchen in Nuremberg years and years ago, after David insisted I had to sample the town's specialty.

I bit into the Lubkuchen cookie and my brain could not wrap itself around what I was eating. I noticed immediately that there were nuts in it, a big no-no as far as I'm concerned. I'm known for saying, "Now, why would someone ruin a perfectly good chocolate chip cookie (brownie, candy bar, pastry,...etc.) by putting nuts in it?" And then there was this strange, flavorless, tough, papery bottom to the Lebkuchen that your teeth need to bite through. What was that all about? "Are you supposed to eat the bottom of it?" I asked David. "Of course," he answered, "That's Lebkuchen!" I forced myself to finish eating the cookie and then something strange happened. I reached for another one. The Lebkuchen had a mysterious appeal. It was irresistible.

Before we moved to Germany, getting Lebkuchen around Christmas was a big treat. David's colleagues would bring packages from Germany and make our day, but I never checked to see if I could find any Lebkuchen in the Atlanta area. That's what I'll be doing this time next year.

Historically, and due to differences in the ingredients, Lebkuchen is also known as honey cake (Honigkuchen) or pepper cake (Pfefferkuchen). Lebkuchen range in taste from spicy to sweet and come in a variety of shapes with round being the most common. The ingredients usually include honey, spices such as aniseed, coriander, cloves, ginger, cardamom, and allspice, nuts including almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts, or candied fruit. Lebkuchen dough is usually placed on a thin wafer base called Oblate. This was an idea of the monks, who used unleavened communion wafer ingredients to prevent the dough from sticking. So, that's what that strange papery bottom is - it's basically an unconsecrated communion wafer. I couldn't believe I never recognized it as such until I researched this blog post. And, typically, Lebkuchen are glazed or covered with very dark chocolate, but some are left uncoated. Glazed are the yummiest.

Lebkuchen is usually soft, but a harder type of Lebkuchen is used to produce LebkuchenHearts, usually inscribed with icing, which are available at many German fairs (this photos was at the Frankfurt Christmas market two years ago), and...

...the witch houses (Hexenhäuschen, made popular because of the fairy tales about Hansel and Gretel).

The closest German equivalent of the "Gingerbread man" is the Honigkuchenpferd" (honey cake horse).

And that, Susan, is what Lebkuchen is.