German Pyramide and German Christmas cookies
When my parents were visiting recently, my dad taught me to make Spekulatien using his family's recipe. I have always enjoyed baking, and it was especially fun to learn to make German Christmas cookies using a family recipe.
If you look up "Spekulatien" on the internet, you will most often see it called "Spekulatius." My dad's family always called it "Spekulatien" because that is the plural of the word "Spekulatius," and they always wanted more than one Spekulatius! I grew up calling it "Spekulatien," and I never knew until last week that not everyone calls it that!
Spekulatien is traditionally made using a wooden mold. After pressing the dough into the mold, you have to bang the mold on the table so that the cookies will fall out. My parents knew that the noise of banging a Spekulatien board would be too much for me because of my chronic migraines, so they gave me a Spekulatien roller!
After rolling out the dough with a regular rolling pin, the Spekulatien roller was used to imprint and cut out the Spekulatien shapes. It was a nice and quiet process.
Spekulatien
Carefully transferring cookies to the cookie sheet
Ready for baking!
Spekulatien fresh from the oven
Later on that same day we made Lebkuchen, another type of German Christmas cookie. Adelaide had so much fun helping us. She loves to bake anything with me.
I don't have my Oma's recipe for Lebkuchen, so I used this recipe. It is delicious! I have found that it takes about 1 cup more flour than the recipe calls for. I also add a glaze to the cookies when the come out of the oven.
Lebkuchen
Lebkuchen and Spekulatien
What is your favorite thing to bake during the Christmas season?
