Advent / Baking / Maria G.'s Lebkuchen recipe

To bake or not to bake, that is the question.

We are all eating too much rich food and not moving enough.  What about our Christmas baking?  When we were children we had cake on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  During Advent we had cookies every evening after lighting the candles and singing our hymns.  It was such a lovely and magical time.  We still remember helping our mother with her voluminous baking and we still remember which were her favorite songs.  And we still remember how we had to sing before we got any cookies.

Singing and cookies:  my favorite drugs of choice.  Somewhere I read:  the poor man's arts and pleasures.  Indeed, every peasant could sing and bake.  Not to be spurned, though.  "He is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest."  We shall indulge a bit.

I will bake one recipe of my husbands favorite, jam-filled's.  See the previously blogged recipe.   They are from the Dr. Oetker baking book.

Also, I will make one recipe's worth of Lebkuchen, I just copied down from my sister-in-law, yesterday.  She got it from Maria G.  We will henceforth call it Maria G.'s Lebkuchen recipe.

Here it is:

1.  Mix til foamy:  2 cups flour

                              2 cups brown sugar

                              4 eggs

                              1/2 cup honey

2.  Add:  1/4 cup ground nuts

               1/4 cup chopped, candied orange and lemon

               1 teaspoon ground cloves

               1 teaspoon cinnamon

               1 teaspoon ginger

               1 teaspoon baking soda

Cover cookie sheet with wax paper or parchment... bake at 350 degrees Farenheit,  in a mass like brownies,  slice while warm.

Pour on icing while warm:  (100 gr. icing sugar, with 1 tablespoon lemon juice and one table spoon water.)