Information About:
Family Recipe - Lebkuchen

Gretchen (9/7/03): The word Lebkuchen means "honey cake" in German. This recipe is supposed to have been handed down in our family for many generations and was traditionally made at Christmas time. When my family moved to Arizona, Grandma would send some to us. Dan ate some of that and said that mine tasted more like my Grandma's than when my mother made it. Since my Grandma was full of old German sayings and one of them was that the "flavor was in your fingers", I was always very proud of that.

     As a child visiting "the farm" in Minnesota, I remember lots of goodies. My grandma would go all out and make frosted sugar cookies, date bars, etc. plus she would buy jelly filled donuts (called Bismarcks) and other stuff. She kept the Lebkuchen in a big round glass cookie jar with a lid on the side. She had an old tin breadbox about 3 feet high with 3 or 4 shelves sitting in one corner of the kitchen. The grandchildren would always open it to see what was in it. The date bars were always on the top shelf. I didn't really like Lebkuchen too well when I was real young--I can remember staying at Grandmas during the Christmas holidays and we would pig out on everything else first. Lebkuchen was what you ate when everything else was gone! I believe it takes years for it to "grow" on you and it is an acquired taste.

     I have seen and tasted other people's varieties and the most common thing I've noticed is an addition of frosting which my Grandma never used. She also made it fairly thick so it would be slightly more squishy even though it eventually hardened up.
My Grandpa and uncles would dunk pieces into coffee and eat it that way.

Benny (9/7/03): Lebkuchen is pronounced lab-coo-ken.