From the archives— Lebkuchen cookies

‘Tis the season for lebkuchen, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la! Here’s another post from the archives.

Friday, December 19, 2014

We have many German traditions at Christmastime, including lights on trees, familiar carols, and food. We top our Christmas tree every year with a modest angel that we brought home from the Christkindlesmarkt in Nürnberg when we were stationed in Bavaria with the army. My brother Kevin and I and our wives also ate Lebkuchen cookies there that reminded us of home.

One of our family traditions is making Lebkuchen cookies, which Google Translate renders as ‘gingerbread.’ I’ve grown to like them more as an adult than I did in my younger days.

I’m most familiar, of course, with Mom’s recipe, which she says she got from my Aunt Dorothy. I suspect that some of my other aunts have their own variations of the Lebkuchen recipe that came from my Great-grandma Agnes Springsteen. Aggie’s mother came to the United States from Hesse, Germany. I wish I had a copy of her recipe.

My cousin Pete’s wife Barb makes Lebkuchen from her Grandma Reithmiller’s recipe. She recently posted pictures of her Lebkuchen baking:

We have quite a bit of German heritage in our family. Lebkuchen cookies are a seasonal reminder and reward of that heritage.