John Myers
Ingredients for 1 servings:
- 250 g honey
- 250 g brown cane sugar
- 100 g butter or margarine
- 1 pack of gingerbread spice
- 1 lemon(s), grated peel
- 500 g flour
- 2 tbsp baking cocoa
- 2 eggs
- 12 g potash (about 1 heaped tsp)
- 2 cl cherry brandy
Instructions
Working time approx. 30 minutes; Rest period approx. 45 days 12 hours 15 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 20 minutes; Total time approx. 45 days 13 hours 5 minutes
Prepare dough in October – bake in December
Heat the honey and sugar. While stirring, add the fat, spices, and lemon zest. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Gradually combine the honey and sugar mixture with the flour and cocoa powder and knead well. Lightly whisk the eggs and mix into the dough. Gently stir the potash into the kirsch, dissolve it well, and mix it into the dough. IMPORTANT: Do not let the dough stand for long during preparation, otherwise it will become stiff and difficult to work with. Knead and mix until it is no longer sticky and is smooth and glossy. (You may need to add a little more flour.) It’s best to use the dough hook on a hand mixer, or better yet, a food processor. Grandma left the whole kneading process to Grandpa. Form a ball and let the dough rest for at least one night. But as recommended above, the gingerbread only tastes truly good if you let the dough “rest” for two months. Knead thoroughly again before rolling out, then roll out on a floured surface until finger-thick. Cut out the dough using a stencil (grandpa was allowed to make one) or a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Let these shapes rest for another 1-2 hours. Bake on baking paper (or lightly greased and floured baking sheets) in the middle rack of a preheated oven. Check the color every now and then; the gingerbread must not get too dark, or it will taste bitter. Reduce the heat if necessary. Bake for about 20 minutes at 180-200°C. Use a little less for fan oven, gas mark 2-3. This amount is enough for a standard baking sheet. Cool the gingerbread immediately on a wire rack. If you want the surface to shine, brush it with sugar water shortly before the end of the baking time. Otherwise, decorate the cooled gingerbread with icing sugar. If you want to decorate with almonds, lightly press them into the dough before baking. Grandma’s favorite were hearts, which she would then brush with ready-made hazelnut glaze after they had cooled. She would decorate them with a chocolate mocha bean or a silver sugar ball. Of course, we children also had the typical St. Nicholas figure, decorated with a wafer-thin picture. (That’s why Grandpa had to make the stencil.) I don’t know how Grandma Frieda attached these pictures. She probably used a paste of powdered sugar and water. The flavor is very typical of how gingerbread used to taste. Slightly bitter, similar to those decorated gingerbread hearts at the fair, but of course much better. It’s possible that the gingerbread will become rock-hard; in that case, store it in moist air or with a sliced apple. This will make it as soft as butter. Important: For any additional questions, please first visit the following link: https://www.chefkoch.de/forum/2,36,538452/Omas-Lebkuchenteig-jetzt-ansetzen-im-Dezember-backen-Teil-4.html
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