Thursday 22 December 2016

Another Visit To Grandma's Christmas Kitchen

It is almost too late to do anymore  baking for Christmas, but this recipe is utterly worth it. This is a fairly thick chocolate Pfefferkuchen baked on a tray and finished with a sugar glaze. The spice mix is milder than given in the previous recipe, so you have variety!

 What you need:

750 g flour
125 g grated dark chocolate,
3 peppercorns, finely crushed
2.5 g ground cloves
2.5 g ground cardamom
7.5 g ground cinnamon
zest of 1 lemon
65 g ground almonds or hazelnuts
                   
                     ___________

340 g honey (or syrup)
200 - 250 g sugar
1/8 l water (125 ml)
65 g butter

                    ___________

2 eggs, beaten
8 g potash (1 1.2 tsp)
1 small glass of rum

                    ___________

How to make:

Sift flour into bowl and stir in all other dry ingredients. in a saucepan combine the honey, sugar, water and butter and bring to boil. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Pour slowly into the flour mix, stirring vigorously. Or use a mixer with dough hooks, which our grandmothers did not possess! Make sure the dough is smooth and well blended. Allow to cool completely.

In the meantime soak the potash in about 3 tbsp of warm water. When dough is cool, strain the soaked potash through a fine sieve and sprinkle all over the dough, then add the beaten eggs and the rum. Knead dough to incorporate the new additions. The dough will be fairly soft at this stage, so placing it covered in the fridge for a few hours will help it to mature and make it easy to roll out.

Lightly butter your baking tray and dust with flour. Place dough on it and using a rolling pin roll out the dough to about finger thickness. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 - 200 degrees C. gas 4 or 5, for 30 minutes. Immediately after baking cut into pieces, squares or rectangles, as you wish and brush with a hot sugar glaze which is made in the following way: Boil 140 g sugar with 1/8 l of water until a drop forms a bead when placed on a plate. Remove from heat and brush on the glaze. Finally place the pieces on cooling racks. The glaze will turn white when dry. If you wish you can add coloured sugar sprinkles before the glaze dries.I was too impatient to take pictures, so the glaze you see is still fresh and hot!

2 comments:

Latest Post

THE TASTIEST PINEAPPLE-GINGER JAM

There are many different types of commercial pineapple jams to be had, some good, some bad and others terrible. Most contain preservatives a...