Lebkuchen

A bakery-sized honey-and-spice dough scaled for a guild oven rather than a home one. Most of the work of making it manageable is arithmetic, plus judgment about flour, since the original gives no quantity.

• Divide it downTwo quarts of molasses, a quart of cream and two pounds of brown sugar will produce something on the order of 15-20 lb of dough. A quarter batch (2 cups molasses, 1 cup cream, 8 oz brown sugar, 2 oz each citron and lemon peel, 2 oz nuts, 1 1/2 teaspoons soda) is a realistic household quantity.
• Butter is unquantifiedButter appears in the method but never in the ingredient list, so no amount can be recovered from the text. For a dough of this style, fat is a minor component; judge by the consistency you want rather than guessing at a figure.
• Do not let the syrup boilThe instruction "melt together (not boil)" is the hinge. Boiled molasses concentrates and sets hard, and the sugar will scorch; warm it only until the sugar dissolves, then cool to lukewarm before the cream goes in or it will curdle.
• Soda, not baking powderTwo tablespoons of soda is the leavening for the whole enormous batch, and it works by reacting with the acid in the molasses. Scale it with everything else; there is no baking powder in this dough and none should be substituted.
• Flour by feel"Add flour, but not too much" means work in flour until the dough is just stiff enough to roll without sticking, usually with a well-floured board. An overfloured Lebkuchen dough bakes dry and stays dry.
• Overnight restThe recipe offers this as an option ('May let batter stand overnight'), and it is worth taking: the stiffened dough rolls and cuts far more cleanly. Cover it well at cool room temperature.
• Candied peel and nutsCitron is candied citron peel (Citrus medica), still sold in tubs at Christmas, though American cooks also candied citron melon rind; candied lemon peel substitutes acceptably. Chop both fine so the dough rolls smooth. The recipe itself allows 'almond or hickory nuts,' and hickory behaves much the same, though almonds are truer to the Nuremberg original.
• Oven and baking'Mould out, and bake' gives no thickness, temperature or time. A workable modern reading: roll about 1/4 inch thick, cut into bars or rounds, and bake at around 350F for roughly 10-14 minutes. Molasses darkens fast, so pull them when the edges are set and the centres still give slightly; they firm as they cool.
• KeepingThese are meant to be stored, not eaten warm. Sealed in a tin, with a slice of apple or bread if they harden too much, they soften and the spice deepens over two to three weeks.