Recipe: Pfefferkuchen

 Pfefferkuchen literally means pepper cake. However, not only is there no actual pepper in this recipe, it's not even cake. It's more like gingerbread cookies or gingersnaps.

So, why is it called pepper cake? Well, this recipe is very old. And by very old, I mean very, very old. This recipe came about at a time before spices were generally used in any recipes, let alone cake or cookie recipes. When spices of any kind, including ginger or cinnamon, were finally available for use in sweet recipes, they were all called pepper. They just used pepper to mean spice. So, that's why pepper is in the name. (I should also say that there are a very large amount of variations of the recipe because of the age of the recipe.) 

The reason it's called cake even though it's actually cookies is because there was a time when all sweet things were called cake in German. After all, we also call it gingerbread, even though it has nothing in common with bread.

So, now that we're over the antiquated semantics, let's get into the actual recipe.

Pfefferkuchen:
500g (4 cups) flour
375g (1 3/4 cup) sugar
1 package (45g) chocolate pudding mix (to cook, not instant)
1 tbsp Lebkuchengewürz (pumpkin spice)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
125g (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
125g (1/3 cup) honey
125g (1/2 cup) molasses
2 eggs


Add honey and molasses to the butter and melt in the microwave. 




Put all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and combine. 



Add butter/molasses mixture and eggs to the dry ingredients and stir together with a spoon. 




Roll into small balls and place on line baking sheet. 



Bake at 375°F or 190°C for 12-15 minutes or until surface looks cracked.

I was seriously pleasantly surprised by how delicious these are.
They are soft and chewy, spicy and sweet. Absolutely lovely. I can highly recommend them.

 Watch us make these traditional German recipe on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/S9GJqHpqUeM
Schaut zu wie wir dieses traditionelles deutsches Rezept auf YouTube machen hier: https://youtu.be/U4X1UTT6eD8


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dress up a Sheet Cake: White on White Wedding Cake

Image
I've been thinking about all the things that have been cancelled because of Covid19 and I think the saddest is the weddings. So much expense, planning, excitement... gone. Now, I know most of you who had to reschedule your wedding will eventually have them. But I don't know how much money you would have lost because of the cancellation of your first planned wedding. So, I thought some of you might need to save money on your future wedding. So, I thought I would share with you a way you could make your own wedding cake out of a regular, plain sheet cake. I started out with a frosted sheet cake. You can frost it yourself or buy it frosted.  Then I thought I would use all of these tips, but I only ended up using the small round tip and the medium star tip. The petal tip and leaf tip weren't needed for this design.  Using a skewer, I traced two interlocking hearts as well as the monograms of the couple. In this case, T and C.  Then I traced over the letters with ...
Read more

Dairy-Free Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Image
After going through the effort of making my vanilla cake gluten free, dairy free and soy free, I needed a dairy free frosting. American buttercream is easy to make dairy free. But the family I'm making the cake for prefers Swiss meringue buttercream. I googled how to make dairy free Swiss meringue buttercream, and basically every blog I found said that it wasn't possible. They all said you have to use butter. I am not willing to accept that answer. So, I decided to experiment a bit until I found a ratio that works. So, first off, here's the recipe: Dairy-free Swiss Meringue Buttercream: 7 egg whites 2 cups sugar 1 1/2 cups dairy-free margarine 1/2 cup shortening pinch of salt 1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tbsp vanilla sugar 1 tsp butter vanilla flavoring (optional, if omitting, double amount of vanilla flavoring)  I'm using a stand mixer today with a whisk attachment.  I first whisk the egg whites, sugar and vanilla sugar, if using vanilla sugar. Then I h...
Read more

Tutorial: How to Make a 2D Simba Cake Topper

Image
 I tried to make this character 3D. I really did. But it was so terrible I just couldn't bring myself to use it.  I eventually decided to try making a 2D figure. Then I could use a template. So first, here's the image I used: First, I cut out a yellow circle to use as a background. Then I added some brown to yellow fondant and rolled it out. I cut around the template and cut out the paws. Then I added the paws cut out of white fondant. Then I used a pointed scuplting tool to press the lines of the template into the fondant. Then, removing the template, I deepened the lines to make them more visible. I added a white muzzle and a pink nose. I painted some brown food coloring mixed with alcohol into the shadows of the face and ears. Finally, I added some undiluted black food coloring to the ears, eyebrows and eyes. How adorable is this? And so clearly Simba. This is a great method for those who can't accurately draw the characters themselves. In other words, perfect for me. Wa...
Read more