Cookie #8 Soetkoekies (South Africa)

This recipe was recommended by a South African friend of mine. I can't lie, I had doubts when I saw lard in the ingredients but these cookies are very tasty and don't taste like pig. ;-) So WARNING: NOT SUITABLE FOR VEGETARIANS. It's a pretty forgiving recipe and I would say don't be afraid to cook them until they are a nice golden brown as they get a bit more crunch in them. These cookies are quite like gingerbread but without the kick that you would get from the ginger and molasses in the gingerbread.

I had some fun with the shapes on these and got to finally use the unicorn cookie cutter from a friend and the dinosaur cutter my sister gave me years ago. The dinosaurs and unicorns have been a great hit with the kids. These cookies hold their shape really well so are good for fancy shapes. This recipe makes a LOT of cookies but they keep very well, just have a good airtight container handy.

 

You can view the recipe link here. The recipe seems like it has a lot of salt in it but I put in the recommended amount and they tasted totally fine.

INGREDIENTS:

Yield 80-90 cookies

5 cups cake flour
2 cups brown sugar or 2 cups yellow sugar, if available
1 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
113g butter, soft
113g pork fat (You can render your own or most supermarkets carry it or use Crisco as a substitute)
1⁄2 cup semi-sweet sherry
2 large eggs, whisked well
   
METHOD:

In a large container mix very well: the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt and all the spices.
Rub in the butter and pork fat with your fingers and palms until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. (See not below.)
Whisk the eggs, add just 1/2 cup sweet wine to the eggs, then stir into the dry mixture.
Stir this in well, and if still too dry to form a dough, add more of the sweet wine to form a fairly stiff dough.
The dough is easy to handle and can be kneaded at this stage to mix well and to form a dough you can roll out.
Roll out thinly, in batches, on a floured surface. Keep gathering up the unused dough, press together, and roll out again.
Make sure your oven grid is in the centre of the oven, as cookies burn easily on the bottom, especially if you use dark tins.
Press out large round cookies, carefully place on the greased tins, and bake in batches in the preheated oven.
Check cookies after 5 minutes; don't let them burn. Cooking time depends on your oven and size of cookies, but is generally about 7 minutes.
Remove with an egg-lifter, and let them cool and harden on wire racks. Store in airtight tins.

NOTE: A handy hint I learned from a friend’s mum years ago for rubbing butter into flour- grate it in. Make sure your butter (and pig fat) and super cold- a brief stint in the freezer can help this. Make sure it’s as much in one solid chunk as possible. Coat it in the flour in the bowl, sit the flour over flour in the bowl, rub some flour over it and then grate the butter. This makes it nice and small and evenly sized and gets rubbed into breadcrumb consistency much faster.

Best eaten: these are nice with a cup of tea (but then what isn’t? ;-) )




Cookie #7 Lebkuchen (Germany)

I’ve never made lebkuchen before but I will definitely think about adding them to the Christmas cookie list. The recipe I used came from here.

It states in the recipe on their site that the cookies should be allowed to “mellow”.  This lets the flavour improve and also changes the consistency of the cookie and it’s totally true. You might be tempted to eat these cookies immediately but they were SOOOOOOO much better several days later. At first I was worried they were really dry but after a couple of days they were softer and definitely had more flavour. To let them “mellow”, store them in an airtight container. Don’t let moisture get in or they’ll get mouldy and then everyone will cry.

I made these on Valentine's Day weekend so used some leftover chocolate to make hearts.

Lebkuchen Recipe

Ingredients:
250g / 9oz / 1¾ cups plus 1tbsp  plain flour
85g / 3oz / ¾ cup ground almonds
spice mix - ¼tsp ground cloves, ½tsp allspice powder, ½tsp nutmeg powder, 1¼tsp cinnamon
1tsp baking powder
½tsp baking soda
175ml / ¾ cup clear honey (or golden syrup)
85g / 3oz softened unsalted butter
½tbsp lemon juice (this is lemon from ½ lemon)
½ lemon, finely grated zest (or combine to 1 lemon zested)
½ orange, finely grated zest
For the icing:
100g / 4oz / 1 cup icing sugar (confectioners’ sugar)
1 egg white, beaten

Method:
Sieve the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

Warm the honey and butter in a pan over a low heat until the butter melts, then pour these into the flour mixture.  Add the lemon juice and lemon & orange zest.  Mix well with a hand held whisk until the dough is throughly combined.  Cover and leave to cool overnight, or for at least 2 hours. to let the flavours meld together and work that festive magic.

Heat oven to 180˚C.

Roll the lebkuchen dough in your hands into around 25 balls, each 3cm wide (1 inch wide), then flatten each one slightly into a disc.  Into the centre of the discs, place an almond flake.

Divide the lebkuchen mixture between 3 baking trays lined with baking parchment, or ideally with an edible baking paper, with a decent amount of room for them to expand into.

Bake for 13 – 15 mins, or until when touched lightly no imprint remains, then cool on a wire rack. While still warm, glaze the lebkuchen with the icing glaze, made as below.

Brush the lebkuchen with glaze icing.

While the cookies are baking, make your glazing icing: mix together the icing sugar and egg white to form a smooth, runny icing.

Brush the top of each biscuit with the glazing icing.  I placed them on top of a drying rack and put a board underneath to catch any dripped icing. Leave to dry out.

I then went crazy on a couple, melted some chocolate and dunked the bottoms of some of the cookies in them so they got chocolate bottoms. They don’t need it but what isn’t better with a bit of chocolate? :-)