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? :-)

Cookie #4 Turtle Cookies AKA The Official Red Deer Cookie (Canada)

For my cookie from Canada I chose the Turtle Cookie or Caramel Surprise Cookies. Apparently they’re the official cookie of Red Deer, Canada. (Who knew?) I came across them on this blog.

The official Red Deer page is here.

“The search for an official Red Deer cookie was initiated in 1994 by Mr. Alain Favre, a local potter/former chef. Mr. Favre was a member of a network of Red Deer Artists called the P'Artisan Society, which hosted an annual …The five judges agreed unanimously that the winner was Darlene Blair of Trochu, Alberta with her family recipe for Caramel Surprises. Darlene Blair says her tasty, chewy Caramel Surprises are representative of Red Deer as "Biting into this cookie is like visiting Red Deer - You'll get a pleasant surprise." One judge was noted to comment, "It fits Red Deer's motto: A Delight to Discover."

Essentially these are chocolate cookies with a Rolo in the middle of them. Main problem in Australia today? It seems they don’t sell Rolo rolls anymore, you can only buy Nestle slabs of the stuff. So I did that and chopped it up. Personally, I’d like to try these with a jersey caramel or something similar in the middle of them (more caramel, less chocolate) but these are a tasty cookie and they went to down very well. The cookie has an almost brownie-like consistency.

You can bake these cookies as a ball on a sheet or you can put them in muffin cups which helps to stop them spreading which I would highly recommend.

Muffin cups = nice shaped cookies, balls on a sheet = what happened on the right. ;-)

INGREDIENTS
1cup butter creamed
1cup white sugar
1cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon soda
2½ cups flour
¾ cup cocoa
1 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped
40 rolo chocolates
40 whole pecans
caster sugar (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS
1.    Toast your pecans, first
2.    Cream white butter and sugar together until fluffy; add brown sugar, and continue to cream until fluffy
3.    Add two eggs, one at a time; continue to beat
4.    Add vanilla
5.    Sift together dry ingredients over wet ingredients, add finely chopped toasted nuts; combine well
6.    Roll a ball of dough around each rolo chocolate or preferably around some homemade caramel; roll each ball in caster sugar.
7.    Place in mini tart pan, push a pecan on top and bake for 10-12 minutes at 180˚C
8.    Sit on cooling rack, still in pan for 7 minutes, losses edges gently, and flip pan to release cookies (They will be very soft, so wait 10 to 15 minutes to move them.

Best eaten: by themselves. These are chocolatey and rich and don't need a cup of tea of coffee with them.

Cookie #3 green tea cookies (Japan)

So. Green tea cookies. I have to be honest, I’m not the hugest fan of green tea. I have a pretty open-minded taste palette but I also don’t expect to like every cookie that I make on this journey around the world.

For me, the cookies tasted good at the start but I didn’t like the aftertaste which was rather, for lack of a better word, plant-like. They have a great texture though and not everyone had my reaction.

This recipe came from a friend of a Japanese friend I knew from fencing way back in the day. Thank you Chie and thank you Chie's friend! :-)

Ingredients
(makes about about 25 cookies)
40g butter
40g vegetable oil
50g castor sugar
150g plain flour
10g matcha powder*
1/3t Vanilla essence
40g dark chocolate ships

Pre-heat the oven to 160℃.

Method
1. Put butter, oil, sugar, and vanilla oil into a bowl. Stir them until it gets smooth and white in colour.
2. Sift four and matcha powder with a sieve. Stir them into the butter mix.
4. Add chocolate chips and mix them roughly.
5. Place on an oven tray into circles roughly 3cm in diameter.
6. Place cookies in the oven and bake them for about 25mins at 160℃.
Note: Press a centre of a cookie to check. If it’s firm, it mean the cookies are done!
7. Remove from the oven, and cool them completely on a wire rack. The cookies are still fragile when they are warm, so be careful when you place them on a wire rack.

Best eaten: with a cup of tea. They're a drier biscuit and a cup of tea might help with any aftertaste issues as well :-)

*Use real matcha powder, not green tea powder. Also, for my personal tastes this was a bit much matcha so I would reduce this, maybe to half. I don’t think it would change the consistency.