Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Lebkuchen biscuits

I know this should really be a Christmas biscuit but until now I always found myself one spice short. As last Saturday, I had all the ingredients and as Lent is not far off, I thought I’d better get on and make them. It is certainly still cold enough for chocolate and spices to be welcome in at 10.30 on a Sunday morning.

Once again, the recipe comes from Linda Collister’s Christmas treats to make and give  (Ryland Peters and Small, 2008). Linda Collister tells us that the  biscuits are said to have their origin in Germany’s medieval monasteries and that traditionally their ingredients include honey and seven spices which represent the seven days of God’s creation. This particular variant is based on meringue and nuts and, in fact, only has 6 spices.

Makes c 16

LEBKUCHEN: Ingredients 

100 g almonds (not blanched)

25 g dark chocolate coarsely chopped

2 tblesp mixed peel, very finely chopped

1/2 teasp ground cinnamon

1/2 teasp ground ginger

1/4 teasp freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teasp ground black pepper

1/4 teasp ground cloves

1/4 teasp allspice

2 large egg whites

115 g sifted icing sugar

TO DECORATE 

150 g good darkchocolate, chopped

(60 g is ample if your biscuits don’t spread)

METHOD

Prepare several baking trays lines with non-stick baking paper

Preheat oven to 150 degrees C (a little less for a fan oven), Gas 2

Put the almonds and chopped chocolate into the bowl of a food processor and process until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Mix in the finely chopped peel and all the spices.

Put the egg whites into a spotlessly clean and grease-free bowl and whisk until stiff peaks form. Gradually whisk in the icing sugar, then continue whisking for another minute until you have a very stiff, glossy meringue. Sprinkly the spice mixture over the top and gently fold this in with a large metal spoon.

Take tablespoons of the mixture and drop them on the prepared baking trays, spacing them well apart to allow for spreading. Using a round-bladed knife, spread out each mound to a disc about 7 cm across(that seems rather big). Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until pale gold and firm.

Remove the trays from the oven, set on a wire rack to cool. When cold, peel the biscuits off the backing paper.

To decorate, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of steaming but not boiling water (making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water). Stir gently till melted, then remove from the heat.m Spread some melted chocolate over one side of each lebkuchen with a palette knife, then leave to set on a sheet of non-stick baking paper.

Store in an airtight container and eat within 4 days.

Comments

These were deemed to be delicious by almost everybody. Waitrose Italian finely cut peel was nicer than I remember chopped peel being when I was young and mixed in with the other ingredients gave the biscuit a touch of the jaffa cake.

Lebkuchen: picture taken from Linda Collister’s “Christmas treats to make and give” (Ryland, Peters and Small, 2008)

Once again my biscuits didn’t spread out as much as those pictured in the cookery book – perhaps that’s down to the characteristics of my oven. 60 g of chocolate was ample to melt over the top, again perhaps this was because my biscuits didn’t spread much.  The biscuits were much more moist the day before and had dried out a little by the next day – I don’t think they would have kept as long as 4 days without becoming too dry. Perhaps I might leave an egg yolk in next time and see if that makes any difference. I was assured that a true Lebkuchen should be crisp on the outside and moist in the middle and on this basis, these made the grade. I shall certainly make them again as they were very good.

Bloomsbury inspired painted sewing box

Here, sort of finished, is daughter no. 1’s Christmas present (for 2012).  Tinkering can always be done but sometimes you have to take a firm hand with yourself, especially when making a present for someone else whose taste is just that bit different from your own. So, I am calling it a day, unless overwhelmingly inspired to do something else with it or unless the recipient herself has ideas.

Bloomsbury inspired sewing box

For some years now I’ve been surveying the sewing baskets on offer commercially and in general find them expensive and rather unsatisfactory. Cath Kidston and Liberty have both gone down the path of 50s style wicker and fabric panniers and though these look pretty, I always find there’s not very much room for any other than a minimal sewing kit. I have, however, succumbed to buying one myself. The college I work in is just opposite Oxford’s branch of Cath Kidston and I couldn’t help popping in on a regular (ok, daily) basis during the summer sale. As the sale price for a sewing basket (bight red wicker with embroidered red and pink roses) went down, so I became interested in it in inverse proportion until equilibrium was reached and I bought it.

Cath Kidston sewing basket

Since then, however, it has languished unused and unseen in a cupboard, because 1. it really is too small,2. it’s not really me and 3. I think it’ll get dirty far too easily. On my own ‘Cost per Wear’ analysis (see post for 14 August 2012), it was a bad buy.

Daughters 2 & 3 have long felt that daughter no 1 is very poorly provided for in the sewing department and whenever we visit her are hard pressed to find even so much as a needle and thread to sew a button on with. Mentioning this domestic inadequacy to the daughter in question, she  – quick as a flash  – caught my gist and I received a polite but firm warning that she didn’t want one of those wicker things that you see everywhere now. Blow, no chance of offloading  guilty purchase then. Massive rethink needed. Fortunately, I had bought several sturdy wooden boxes from Focus just before they disappeared for ever from the retail scene. Some are just open crates which are very useful for carting unfinished sewing from room to room but I did also buy 4 which have hinged lids. Soundly made in smooth, solid wood, with rounded corners and neat little brass hinges, they needed little preparation for some decorative painting. 

Bloomsbury inspired sewing box: patchwork interior

As I wanted a Bloomsbury look (i.e. a bit slapdash and worn, though not quite as bad as much of the Omega stuff) I didn’t bother with primer or undercoat. I just gave it 2 or 3 coats of my pot of eggshell (once of Farrow and Ball origin, but now a gloop including Dulux brilliant white satin wood/blackboard paint, etc.) and then played around with various emulsions which have stayed put with the addition of several sprayings of pastel fixative. If it all goes horribly wrong and drops off in sheets, I’ll rethink and re-do but for the moment it all seems to be ok.

Painted wooden sewing box with patchwork interior

The usual suspects of left over cotton fabrics were rounded up for the interior and should daughter no 1 chose to meditate on her past life, she could do worse than to open up the lid of her sewing box and focus on the little pieces making up the patchwork: early Laura Ashley in profusion – paisley print dresses (hers magenta, her sister’s indigo), nightdresses, bedroom curtains, bedlinen, tablecloths,  Kaffe Fassett, bits of the bag Toast bedlinen came in and fragments of Cath Kidston napkins. If she is more discerning she might notice the very few pieces of Colefax and Fowler from goodness knows where and some very ancient and very pretty Sanderson rescued from curtains worn to a frazzle by the sun and salt which formerly hung in a friend’s seaside bungalow. The black edging, my favourite fabric of the moment is Indian fabric from the Cloth House. Sandwiched with cotton batting and backed with calico, the whole was then hand quilted and sewn up to fit the inside. I applied self sticking velcro (hook side) to the top inside top edge of the box and sewn velcro (loop side) to the inside of the quilting, so the whole thing can be removed and washed when she spills a cup of coffee all over it. The internal space measures about: 15 inches (38 cm) x 11 inches (28 cm) x 7 inches (18 cm) which is ample to store boxes of cottons, tins of needles and pins, good sized scissors and quite a bit more that you might want to throw in out of the way when somebody comes.

Picture taken from Bloomsbury, ed Gillian Naylor (Pyramid Books, 1990)

The Bloomsbury painters ( see post of 30 August 2012) continue  to delight us today with their use of colour (both pure and muddied) and their inability to leave a piece of wood or a bit of wall unpainted. The lime green splashed on the wall surrounding the fireplace is still vibrant and exciting while the circles of painted fire surround sooth and satisfy.  The following quotes give a flavour of the coming into life of the house:

“One after the other the rooms were decorated and altered almost out of recognition as the bodies of the saved are said to be glorified after the resurrection. Duncan painted many of the doors with pictures on the panels and with decorative borders round the frames….

Then Clive took possession of one room with his shelves of books, boxes of cheroots, Rose Geranium bath salts and a guncase….”  (David Garnett: The Flowers of the Forest, 1955.)

Vanessa Bell: Painting of Adam and Eve

I thought my deep pinky red, buttercup yellow and grey  were very un-Bloomsbury, so I fell upon the above picture with delight. A 1913 design (gouache, oil and pencil) for a bedhead, it was never realised although a table with a similar design (but different colours) was. 

I can’t resist finishing with this wonderful quote from a letter Vanessa Bell wrote to Roger Fry:

“Maynard [Keynes] came back suddenly and unexpectedly late at night having been dropped at the botom of the lane by Austen Chamberlain in a Government motor and said he had left a Cézanne by the roadside! Duncan rushed off to get it and you can imagine how exciting it all was…”