LEBKUCHEN A flat, hard, German gingerbread, shaped into hearts for hanging, on ribbons, and made into gingerbread houses. Flavoured with the seven lebbuchen spices, including black pepper, cloves star arine, cinnamon and nutmeg and honey. Sometimes a little chopped candied peel is added and the gingerbreads are usually glazed, often with icing (frosting) decorations. A special raising agent called birshbornsalz (hart’s horn salt) is used - actually carbonate of ammonia - which needs a very long rising time. This accounts for the Christmas smell of spices in many German homes in advent. Celebrated in Nuremberg, but made throughout German, it is perhaps the most famous type of gingerbread. It dates to about the turn of the 12th century, when local merchants strated importing spices into a region of south Germany, already famous for its honey. For several weeks after it is made, lebbucken is too hard to eat and it must mature and soften. It is the origin of the cinnamon and spice. Dutch speculaas (eaten on St Nicholas Eve, 5th December) as well as all the ginger bread men, trees and houses in Switzerland, Scandinavia, the United States of America and Britain.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 08:16:30 +0000
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