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Speculatius

10/10/2014

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Picture
400g Flour
200g sugar
200g margarine
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mace
1 teaspoon ground cloves
water
sliced almonds

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and spices together.  Rub in margarine. Create a well in the middle and add in the beaten egg. Mix together and knead into  dough, adding water by the tablespoon full if necessary. Leave the dough to rest - allow it to cool but not chill completely as it is then too hard to roll.

Preheat the oven to 170C.Line a baking tray with baking paper. Roll dough out to 5mm thickness. Cut a rectangular shape to fit the baking try. Scatter sliced almonds over the baking paper and the dough onto the almonds. Bake for  12 - 15 minutes until done. Remove from  oven and cut into rectangles whilst still warm.

You can, of course, leave out the almonds, and mould the dough into the traditional speculatius mould, or simply cut out shapes with the traditional cookie cutter.


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Lebkuchen/Gingerbread Recipe

10/1/2014

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Picture
450g Flour
250g golden syrup (a pale treacle)
375g margarine (you can use butter but the point here is that it really is not essential)
1 tsp Lebkuchen spice ( see my recipe under German Christmas Recipes)
100g brown sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda/baking soda

In a saucepan melt margarine, syrup, spices and brown sugar. Leave to cool. Add flour and bicarbonate of soda and knead to a smooth dough.. Rollout to approx. 5mm thickness and cut into desired shapes. Bake at 180C for 15 to 20 minutes or until done.

Decorate with icing as desired.
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Marzipan (homemade)

9/26/2014

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200g finely ground almonds (best done from whole almonds that you grind yourself as you need the little moisture that comes naturally from within the almonds) 

180g icing sugar

almond oil/rosewater/orange extract




In a blender mix the almonds and icing sugar adding drops of essence/extract of choice until a dough like consistency is reached. Take out of the blender, and knead until you have the required texture/consistency.

Use as required. or store in an airtight container.

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Lebkuchen/Gingerbread Spice Blend

9/20/2014

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Lebkuchen Spice Blend is a blend of a number of spices that makeup that amazing flavour of German 'Gingerbread'or Lebkuchen.

Lebkuchen is used to make houses that are decorated with sweets and icing, big heartsr that have names or even romantic messages iced on them. More recently the gingerbread Christmas tree has become very popular and I have also seens sleighs made from lebkuchen.

Lebkuchen is an integral part of German Advent and Christmas traditions and my mother was always big on keeping the traditions. In South Africa in the '70's and '80's the widely available in Germany - Lebkuchen spice was not readily available so she researched and made her own before she started baking.




Lebkuchen Spice: 

3 Tablespoon Cinnamon

2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground mace

1/2 teaspoon  ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground aniseed




Mix all together and store in an airtight jar till required.




You can use whole spices and grind them down to powder form in a clean coffee grinder.















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    On this page I am Angela, daughter of German mother and Austrian father who kept very true to their traditions over Christmas. This is my way of preserving those traditions.

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