The first time I ever had Lebkuchen (German gingerbread) was back in 1997. Harald was visiting me in Berkeley and had brought homemade ones all the way from Germany. At that time, I had no idea what these round, fragrant, nutty and soft cookie-like snacks were, but they were the most delicious things I’d tasted in a long time. Sadly, they were impossible to find outside of Germany.

Lebkuchen is most commonly available in Germany around Christmas. These wonderfully aromatic spice cookies, whose main ingredients are spices, flour, ground almonds/hazelnuts/walnuts, eggs, candied orange and lime peel, can be found in supermarkets in the couple of months leading up to Christmas with the most common brands being Bahlsen and Wicklein.

Our favourite Lebkuchen manufacturer is Lebkuchen-Schmidt. Their Lebkuchen products are so popular (in Bavaria, anyways) that they can afford to have seasonal shops that are closed all year round except for 3 months in winter. Fortunately for us (since we aren’t always here around Christmas), they also have shops that are open all-year round. Whenever we visit Germany, we’d make a trip to one of their shops in Nürnberg and end up carrying at least a kilogram of Lebkuchen home.

The homemade Lebkuchen featured here, which I made together with A, are just as wonderful as the store-bought ones, if not better. I’ll definitely be making space in my luggage for these “(home)made-in-Germany” cookies, along with all sorts of confectioneries and baking ingredients that I’d be hard-pressed to find back home!

[Edited Mar 21, 2008 to include translated recipe]

Classic Lebkuchen (Adapted and translated from Lekuchen Rezepte)

Yield: ~ 30 Lebkuchen
Ingredients
200g sugar
1 packet vanilla sugar (~10g)
1 tsp cinnamon
One pinch each of ground cloves, allspice and cardamon
200g almonds (ground)
50g candied orange peel (chopped)
75g candied lemon peel (chopped)
Zest from ½ lemon
250g flour
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
30 round wafer sheets (~ 7cm)
Sugar glaze (see recipe below)
Whole blanched almonds for decoration (optional)

Method
1. Mix the flour and baking powder together.
2. Place the eggs with the sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl and beat until foamy.
3. Add in the flour mixure, spices, almonds, lemon zest, candied orange and lemon peel. Mix to form a dough.
4. Preheat the oven to 175 – 200 degrees C. (I use 180 degrees C for lebkuchen)
5. Spread the dough on each wafer sheet and bake until golden brown on an ungreased baking sheet for 15 to 20 mins.
6. Allow the lebkuchen to cool and glaze with the sugar glaze. Decorate with the whole blanched almonds as desired.

Sugar Glaze
Ingredients
200g confectioner’s sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice (alternatively, use 2 tbsp rum)
2 tbsp hot water

Method
1. Mix well for 5 – 10 mins. The glaze should be fluid with a thick consistency.

After an insane 20-day-long Christmas baking schedule, I’m ready for an extended break.

Baking this year has been loads of fun, but at times, it has also been extremely challenging and exhausting, especially in the last 3 weeks. I suppose it was inevitable, with 418 macarons, 250 gingerbread cookies, 6 gingerbread Christmas trees, 30 cakes on the Christmas baking schedule and just one oven and one pair of hands!

Looking back, I’ve realised that this past year held several “firsts” for me; 1st press interview and press mention, 1st blog award, 1st corporate order, 1st time taking Christmas orders. I’m not sure if next year will be as exciting, but I’ll be beginning 2008 by teaching my 1st ever individual hands-on baking class!

None of these would have been possible without you (my dear blog readers and generous clients), so here’s a big thank you to all of you, for your support, wonderful comments and feedback this past year!

For now, Harald and I are off to Germany (and London) for a month of R&R! So here’s wishing everyone a happy Christmas and wonderful New Year!

Jen from Milk and Cookies has very kindly presented me with the Yummy Blog Award. Thank you, Jen! By my count, I’m the fifth recipient of this award, created by Meisha of meisha in progress for Culinary Creativity.

I’d like to pass this award on to the more than deserving Lynn of Enchanté. This Le Cordon Blu trained pastry chef makes the most beautiful desserts and gives lessons in pastry too. Have I mentioned that she takes gorgeous photographs of all her wonderfully original creations?

In my opinion, gingerbread cookies are to Christmas, what pineapple tarts are to the Chinese Lunar New Year. But to be perfectly honest, I didn’t make any last Christmas and the main reason why I’m making them this year is an order for a corporate client.

When I do make gingerbread cookies, I actually find the entire process of kneading, rolling out, cutting and baking the dough a lot of fun. But the most enjoyable part for me is the decorating. There are really so many different ways to decorate a gingerbread cookie and every cookie represents a chance to try out a new idea.

This year, I came across the idea for an edible Christmas tree in several places. I first saw it on the Wilton website, subsequently on Jocelyn’s blog and most recently on Lynn’s blog.

It seemed like an easy enough project with impressive looking results, so I went ahead and made one (ok, two) small tree(s) as well. The icing turned out a little more time consuming than I’d expected, but the finished product certainly justified the effort.

There’s no denying that a large edible gingerbread tree would make a wonderful table centrepiece for that Christmas brunch or dinner party. It would also make a lovely gift, but if you do decide to give it a go, be forewarned that while the piping process isn’t rocket science, it does require some patience!

My friend, S, gave me a bottle of her homemade lemon curd a while ago and I managed to do her deliciously tangy lemon curd justice by using it in these 4″ wide lemon meringue tarts.

I was feeling too tired to bake tart shells from scratch and went with finely crushed digestive biscuits, caster sugar and melted butter for the crust. While it was convenient, I was to discover later that I should have made a proper crust.

For the fluffy tuffs of meringue, I used the cooked meringue method, which according to Jamie Oliver’s book, Cook with Jamie, gives a meringue even more stable than italian meringue. I had the most fun with this little project when browning the meringue with my small blow torch, which incidentally has been acting up for some time now. I suspect I’ll be needing a new one soon.

The tangy lemon curd went wonderfully well with the sweet meringue. The crushed biscuit crust, however, turned a little soft after a while out of the refrigerator, probably because I couldn’t press the crumbs together as tightly in the small tart rings. Next time, I’ll definitely be more diligent and make a proper baked crust.

When I received my first enquiry back in August about Christmas baking, I thought it’d be a great idea to come up with limited period macaron flavours just for the Christmas season.

I was pretty excited about the new flavours I’d dreamt up, but the steady stream of orders for macarons and cakes meant that I never had the time to actually try them out until this week.

All three new flavours have a hidden centre, which I thought was wonderfully appropriate for Christmas; biting into the macaron to find a hidden surprise in the middle would be like opening up a beautifully packaged Christmas present to get to the gift inside. Well, almost…

Peppermint Shells with Mint Tea White and Dark Chocolate Ganache

After all, what would Christmas be like without peppermint candy canes? While I love mint, I didn’t want the flavour to be overpowering and decided to go with chocolate as a filling. Even my husband who isn’t a great fan of mint likes the occasional After Eight thin chocolate square. For a subtler mint flavour, I went with mint tea infused white chocolate ganache as the main filling and a dark chocolate ganache in the centre. For those who don’t fancy white chocolate, there is also a mint tea dark chocolate ganache only version.

Christmas Spice Macaron with Ginger Rhubarb Buttercream and an Almond Paste Centre

I’ve always associated the smell of freshly baked gingerbread cookies with Christmas. It was easy to come up with just the right mix of spices for the macaron shells, but the filling was a little more difficult. I finally settled for a mildly tangy ginger rhubarb buttercream and a wonderfully aromatic homemade almond paste centre. Inspired by the deeply coloured macarons offered by Pierre Hermé and Ladurée, two of the finest pâtissieries in Paris, I went with a deep pink (almost red) colour for the shells. It wouldn’t be Christmas in a box without a touch of red now, would it?

Ginger Macarons with Ginger Rhubarb Buttercream and Candied Ginger (pictured in the first photograph above)

My sister had told me many months ago about a ginger flavoured macaron that her colleague had tried. While I was mildly intrigued, I wasn’t too sure if it’d be well-received. Then I remembered those blistery cold winter nights in Sweden and how wonderful that cup of firey hot ginger tea I’d shared with WL and SH had felt then. While Christmas in Singapore isn’t quite as cold, there are days when it’s cold enough to make me wish for that extra bit of warmth. I suppose it was worth a shot.

The results were surprisingly good. I kept the ginger flavour in the shells and buttercream on the mild side and added candied ginger to the centre for a stronger flavour. It made for a mildly tangy macaron until you hit the slightly spicy candied ginger centre.

The downside of having waited so long to make these Christmas macarons is that I only have a few slots left for anyone wishing to try them.

Available for Purchase: Christmas in a Box @ a Price of S$45. Includes 28 macarons (3 Christmas flavours or any other flavour you fancy from the list here) in a long glossy red custom made box with fat green or gold ribbon.

The thing about using fresh strawberries (or any fresh fruit for that matter) in cakes is that one is always at the mercy of the latest shipment that arrives from where ever it is that the local supermarkets or grocers at the wet market get their fruit.

The truth be told, I get just a little nervous whenever I receive orders for strawberry cakes because I never quite know what I’m going to find on the supermarket shelves. This is especially true in the period between the end of the US season and the beginning of the Australian / New Zealand season. There have been days when I almost cried tears of dismay at the awful state of the strawberries that were available - over-ripened ones that were already beginning to turn to mush, under-ripened ones that were 1/3 greenish white, monsterously huge ones and sad tiny ones (both kinds in the same punnet) - I’ve seen them all.

These days, I get my strawberies from the fruit stands at the local wet markets and they’ve been great so far. I believe it’s because the grocers are more fastidious when picking produce for their stalls. Now if only the supermarkets could afford the time to sort their produce…

The cheesecake pictured here is the 1st cheesecake order I’ve received. Many thanks to L for giving me room to experiment with a new recipe!

I’ve received many requests for chocolate muffins in the last few weeks, but since I wasn’t completely satisfied with the recipe I had, I was very reluctant to make them, much less put them up for sale.

I finally found some time this week, not only to tweak my chocolate muffin recipe, but to try out the oft-recommended flavour marriage of orange and chocolate.

These orange dark chocolate muffins contain Valrhona Manjari (64%), a generous splash of Grand Marnier and orange zest. While the domes here are not as dramatic as the blueberry muffins, I love how the crisp, chocolate chip studded tops give way to a delicate cake-like crumb. My favourite part about these little pillowy treats is the aromatic citrus overtone.

I’m really pleased with the results and even more delighted that I won’t have to say “no” the next time someone asks for chocolate muffins.

Available for purchase: 12 Orange Dark Chocolate Muffins made with Valrhona Manjari @ a Price of $25. Chocolate Only Variation @ a Price of $24.

My client, C, had originally approached me about miniature sugar paste cakes. They were for a young lady celebrating her birthday at the Bukit Timah Saddle Club.

Since fondant, the humid weather and I don’t seem to agree with each other, I suggested a cake with a royal icing pony instead when C told me that a pony ride would be part of the day’s events.

I went ahead and designed a trial royal icing pony. I soon realised that it would not be an easy task getting the pony on to the cake without breaking it and the only thing I could think of was using fondant as a support as I’d done for the giraffe. I guess I couldn’t escape fondant after all!

As expected, the fondant was only semi-dry. Still, I think the chocolate cake turned out pretty cute. I only hope it survived long enough for the birthday girl to cut the cake!

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a really adorable royal icing giraffe in one of my mum’s old cake decorating books. I thought the idea was cute and that it’d be cool to make a long cake. Since my sister’s birthday was coming up, I had the perfect excuse!

The royal icing piping was a lot of fun and the giraffe was really cute, except for one major problem. I hadn’t thought of how I could remove the sugar art from the cellophane without breaking it. But just in case things didn’t work out, I made a little royal icing rooster as well, all the while hoping that the giraffe would stay intact. Sadly, the giraffe did break (into several pieces), but I thought I could still salvage it by assembling the pieces on a long piece of fondant.

Little did I realise that I’d just created another problem. The fondant stubbornly refused to dry, despite the hot weather. All it did was dry a little in the day, but turn into a soft mush in the evening. This I attributed to the awful humidity that we’ve been experiencing lately. In the end, I turned to air-conditioning for help. The fondant did dry somewhat, but only if I kept it in the air-conditioned room.

In the end, I managed to get sugar paste and royal icing on to the chocolate cake (sandwiched with raspberry jam and chocolate ganache), but this experience has further convinced me not to put fondant cakes up for sale. At least for now. As beautiful or adorable as the end results usually are, the drying process is just too annoying and is most definitely not worth running the air-conditioning for days on end.

* NOT FOR SALE *