23 December 2008

Harder Than It Looks

Emboldened by Global Baby's newfound ability to sleep through the night, which apparently made me giddy with adequate sleep, I decided this year I would attempt making the traditional Germanic Christmas Cookie - Lebkuchen. It's sort of like Gingerbread, but more cake-like and spicier.

So I looked up a bunch of recipes, saw how many steps were involved, and promptly abandoned the idea.

Instead I went online and ordered Lebkuchen from Migros's online grocery store.

I expected to receive a finished cookie, ready to be eaten. Instead I received refrigerated cookie dough. Not what I thought. But what the heck, I'll give it a go.

On Monday morning I handed GB to GLH and started to work. It was much harder than I anticipated, primarily because the cookie dough had the consistency of nearly dried cement. It was impossible to roll out and stuck to everything.

This is what Lebkuchen is supposed to look like:
And here is what came out of the oven:
I suspect part of the issue is that I wasn't able to roll it out as thin as the directions recommended, so they ended up undercooked. Regardless of the cause, the end result was inedible.

In the future I shall be purchasing ready to eat Lebkuchen. This experiment is done.

3 comments:

A Librarian said...

It's so sad when you have to throw away cookies.

Unknown said...

Oh that such a bummer! I'm afraid I could see this same thing happening to me.

But...I have an idea - Ask Christina to send you some cookies from Germany!!! She made incredible delights!!!!

christina said...

Yeah, the real gingerbread dough can be a beast to work with. I made some years ago that had a brick-like quality but it turned out OK in the end. This year I made a fluffier kind that won't last as long but was waaay easier.