The Christmas Bakery—Elisen Lebkuchen and Marzipankipferl
Both of today’s recipes are ‘professional’ in that I only know these cookies from shops and did not think that they could be made at home. Marzipankipferl are normally available in any German cakeshop as Marzipanhörnchen—this is a mini-version which should be a similar size to yesterday’s Vanillekipferl. They require patience, but the final shape doesn’t matter too much—coated in almond flakes and dipped in chocolate, they look yummy!
Elisen-Lebkuchen are the finest of the German-style spiced cookies—named after the patron saint of bakers. I did not do her honour!
Reason to prepare these two together: I used egg yolk for the Lebkuchen, whites for the Kipferl. Also, both use lemon zest. But bake them separately to keep an eye on them—unless you feel very confident.
Unlikely Accident No. 1: I stabbed myself with a pistacchio kernel. The kernel, not the shell. I was peeling off the salty skin when the damn thing sliced right under my thumbnail. Yeah, go on, laugh—I had to process garlic and chillies for that night’s black bean chilli and was in a house of pain. Ouch!
And today’s lesson is: Baking professional-style pastry is best left to the professionals (!)
This link may have been better instead of the above. It doesn’t differ by much, except that it uses the traditional-size 7cm Ø oblaten (wafer papers), which I also did. However, there is another, important difference: it does NOT use flour! Use at most a few teaspoons full—just enough to adjust the consistency of the dough, which should remain spreadable. Using too much flour (and a WET palette knife to force the dough into shape) may have ruined my attempt. These cookies should be soft-ish, not hard (don’t overbake them either—which I also did!) The result of my efforts wasn’t really acceptable. I would have re-baked these things, but the corner shop doesn’t sell ground almonds and I’m out. So it will be onward with something different in the next instalment.
1egg (or 2 yolks); 50g vanilla (infused) sugar; 50g demerara sugar (for added spicyness); 1 green cardarmon, seeds extracted and ground; 2-3 cloves, ground (pass ground spices through a fine sieve); 1 tsp cinnamon; ½ tsp allspice; pinch mace (if desired); zest of ¼ lemon; 100g ground almonds; 25g candied peel/glacé cherries; [50g flour—OMIT!]; pinch baking powder; oblaten or ‘rice-paper’ rounds @ Ø 7cm (edible base); 40g icing sugar; ca. 10 ml lemon juice (just enough to make a stiff icing); chopped pistachios (or other garnish)
This makes about twelve (you won’t fit more on one baking sheet)
Quality candied peel isn’t available in greater Tadley. I don’t like glacé cherries either, so I soaked some dry fruit in brandy, chopped it and added that instead. Raisins or sultanas are not an option!
As for the oblaten, I had some ‘rice paper’ (there is no rice in it, and it isn’t paper ;)) left over from my chef’s course—about 4 years out of date, but that didn’t matter. It keeps forever when stored in dry conditions (and away from insect pests). Use a pointy knife to cut out rounds by running around a ramekin dish or pastry cutter (The cutter itself won’t do the trick).
Beat the egg and sugar until creamy, about 5 minutes with a slow mixer (or by hand if you’re a masochist). Stir in the almonds, candied peel, spices and baking powder. This mass should remain spreadable, so stir in just enough flour to bind (if it is too moist, it will require drying out overnight before baking, too firm and the cookies will become tough…)
Spread on top of the ‘paper’ rounds, leaving a margin (depending on the consistency, the dough may spread).
Chill for at least 1 h. Pre-heat oven to 175°C.
Bake for 18-20 minutes (and not 24 minutes, as I did, or you don’t just end up with tough cookies—you’ll burn them, too).
While they are still warm, spread over the thick icing (I used my fingers) and stick on your garnish of choice. Finally, cut off any ‘paper’ that sticks out from the base.
Note: after painstakingly compiling this entry, I found an English language recipe (while googling for ‘oblaten’). The link given in the recipe doesn’t work, so go to this one if you want to order the real thing. Or, alternatively, just order the Lebkuchen!
A bit of unnecessary arithmetic (seeing that everything ends up covered in icing sugar anyway): Sainsbury’s marzipan only contains 25% almonds—this is because they want to maximise their profit margins. Home-made marzipan is 50% almonds to sugar. To remedy this, I cut the sugar from 100g, recommended in the recipe, to 50g (shop-bought marzipan gave me 125g sugar, as opposed to 75g, so reduce by 50g, which just happens to be half). The result is still too sweet. I made up the consistency with ground almonds, according to gut-feeling. Whatever you do, the result will be sticky!
Home-made marzipan also contains a dash of rose-water. Buy it from an ethnic deli (not the supermarket—at 3x the cost!). I freeze it in ice-cube trays and keep it in tupper boxes or freezer bags for future use. Even so, I have yet to use more than 1 tablespoon per bottle—we tend to move house before I get through any more of it.
250g marzipan (finely cubed); 1 eggwhite; 50g sugar; ground almonds (a few small handfuls); good dash almond essence; dash rose water (if desired); zest of ½ lemon; 100g almond flakes; small bowl with icing sugar; 100g dark chocolate
The number of cookies you get depends on their size, but I ended up with a dozen and a few mis-shapes. It could have been twice that.
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
Mix the dough ingredients together, adding ground almonds until the mass becomes pliable. Scatter the almond flakes onto the worktop in a thick layer.
Generously dust your hands with icing sugar and shape the dough into little sausages, one at a time (toss it like a hot potato. Did I mention it is sticky?), Quickly roll in the flaked almonds and tease into a little crescent shape. Place on a baking sheet covered with greaseproof paper.
Bake 10 minutes 200°C, until the edges of the almonds begin to take on colour. Short of burning them, you can’t really mess these up.
Leave to cool while preparing the chocolate dip.
Hint from the then Head of Pastry at Gleneagles: Chocolate remains pliable for longer if you add 1/3 finely chopped chocolate chips to 2/3 melted chocolate. Stir until it is just smooth. This stuff can be spooned, or put into piping bags to draw shapes for cake decorations. For this, use acetate, which is easy to peel off (plus you can trace the shapes through it!). Quote from the guy: ‘I don’t get people who can’t even write their name in chocolate’. Well, pastry was never my thing, but prepare the chocolate this way and even I can at least coat things in it. There’s no rush.
In a bowl which fits comfortably over a slowly simmering pot of water, melt 2/3 of the chocolate. Take off heat and stir in the finely chopped last 1/3. Stir (warm briefly if necessary) until the lumps have just disappeared. Now dip the ends of the cookies in chocolate and use a spoon to drizzle over the final bits (you can make fancy, stripy patterns if you like—use a small piping bag or plastic bag with a small hole cut in one corner. This also works nicely over balls of ice cream!).
When applied to still-warm cookies, or at room temperature, the chocolate will remain soft for some time. Set in the fridge, but do not allow it to sweat. Finally, leave the Kipferl to dry at room temperature overnight before transferring to biscuit tin/box.
Tags: 'Round the World Recipes, Christmas, Food, sweets, Travel, Tag Index
Denni
December 15th, 2006 at 17:57
Hi Denni
What was unlikely accident number 2?
(Sorry, whenever I see a counter started, I expect it to be incremented somewhere!)
Anyway, best wishes for Christmas for you and John.
Toby
December 15th, 2006 at 18:50
I’m still waiting for Unlikely Accident No. 2, but saying that, the Spekulatius aren’t in the oven yet!
Merry Christmas to you too–it’s great to hear from you again!
August 30th, 2007 at 15:45
How much brandy do you use when soaking the fruit?
September 4th, 2007 at 12:03
Sorry for my late reply–I7m in Japan with bad internet access.
For this reason I can’t look up my recipe notes and hence have no idea. More is better, the fruit should be drained anyway (the resulting liquid is very nice when added to cakes or deserts).
December 15th, 2008 at 05:02
Denni – thanks for cheering me up this morning. By chance I came across your blog while searching for german christmas recipes. I am in the south of India and sadly I can not get most of the items required (i.e. marzipan etc.) for this kind of baking here. My german heart “bleeds” – because a true german christmas simply has to have all the goodies from ones childhood and Mom’s kitchen. Am I getting old and too sentimental? Anyhow, I will go ahead and try to bake something. Thanks again and Merry Christmas, whereever you will be.
December 15th, 2008 at 19:54
You should get ground almonds in India for making your own marzipan.
Anyway, rather India than freezing Germany, eh? 😉
December 22nd, 2009 at 23:04
Thanks for this funny posting it really tickles me that someone can be enthusiastic and adventurous with baking (and be honest about Disasters). I am desperate for a nice lebkuchen recipe that has that funny spongey nether cake nor biscuit texture – I am going to give yours a try as – overbaked or not – I think your picture looks good. I am going to dip them in lemon icing while warm to seal them.
Best wishes for a lovely Crimbo.