Rugelach

Lebkuchen

• 200 GRAM FLOUR
• 100 GRAM BUTTER, soft
• 100 GRAM CREAM CHEESE
• 75 GRAM SUGAR
• 50 GRAM RAISINS
• 1/2 TSP CINNAMON
• 50 GRAM ALMOND PASTE

• 1 EGGS
• 75 GRAM BROWN SUGAR
• 100 GRAM HONEY
• 200 GRAM FLOUR
• 1 1/2 TSP BISCUIT SPICES
• 100 GRAM SUGARED CITRUS PEEL, cut
• 100 GRAM ICING SUGAR

Beat the butter and cream cheese together. Slowly beat in the flour and knead the dough a minute or so. Put the dough in the fridge for at least one hour. Mix 50 gram sugar with the raisins, the cinnamon and the almond paste, for filling. Roll out the dough and cut in triangles. Distribute the filling over the triangles and roll the like croissants. Sprinkle with the remaining sugar and bake them 16 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius.

Mix egg, sugar, honey, flour, citrus peel and spices and knead well. Put the dough in the fridge for 2 hours. Roll it out and cut squares or rectangles. Bake the cookies 15 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius. Allow them to cool down. Mix the icing sugar with a little water into icing and brush over the cookies. Decorate with a piece of peel.

This is a German recipe. On 9 November Germany celebrates "Schicksalstag" or Destiny Day. There are various dates  at the basis of this day, among others the dethronement of Empire Wilhelm II in 1918. Click on culinary calendar for more links between cooking and worldwide history.

The origin of the word "leb" is not entirely clear; maybe it is "libum" (flat cook or bread) or from the German word for "life", because lebkuchen was given to mothers after delivering their babies and to sick people in the Middle Ages. The recipe resembles that for gingerbread men.

These are Jewish cookies and are served at the festival of Chanukah. You need to work fast and keep the dough cool, otherwise it is difficult. In Bangladesh, this is next to impossible, and even though I put the dough back in the fridge twice, the result is not optimal, but still delicious.