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Neuremburghs
2 eggs 1/8 teaspoon clove 1/2 cup powdered sugar 1 tablespoon orange peel, finely cut 3/4 cup flour 1/3 teaspoon salt Grated rind 1/2 lemon 1/3 teaspoon cinnamon 3/4 cup Jordan almonds Beat the whites of the eggs until stiff, and add sugar gradually, continuing the beating. Then add yolks of eggs well beaten, flour mixed and sifted with salt and spices, orange peel, and lemon rind. Blanch almonds, cut in small pieces crosswise, and bake in a slow oven until well browned. Fold into the mixture, and drop by spoonfuls on a sheet dredged with corn-starch and powdered sugar in equal proportions. Bake in a moderate oven.
A spiced almond drop cookie in the Nuremberg style, written in the shorthand of turn-of-the-century American cookbooks: no pan size, no baking time, no yield. A few points close those gaps.
- Jordan almondsThese are the long, flat Spanish almonds sold whole for blanching, not the candy-coated confection the name now brings to mind. Whole raw almonds, blanched and slivered crosswise, are the right substitute; 3/4 cup is about 4 oz.
- Toast the almonds first, separatelyThe "slow oven" for browning the cut almonds is usually read as about 300F, and they want roughly 10 to 15 minutes with a shake or two. Easy to skip by mistake, since the recipe buries the step mid-paragraph.
- Moderate oven350F for the cookies themselves. Small spoonfuls will be set and lightly colored at the edges in 10 to 14 minutes; they firm considerably as they cool.
- Powdered sugarIn American books of this period "powdered sugar" usually meant a fine granulated sugar rather than the cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar sold today. Superfine (caster) sugar beats into the whites more reliably; reserve true confectioners' sugar for the dusting mixture.
- Orange peelMost likely candied orange peel, finely diced, rather than fresh zest, though the recipe does not say so outright. A tablespoon is roughly 1/3 oz. If substituting fresh zest, use about a teaspoon, since candied peel contributes sugar and moisture as well as flavor.
- The odd fractions1/3 teaspoon salt and 1/3 teaspoon cinnamon are awkward to measure today; a rounded 1/4 teaspoon of each is close enough. The 1/8 teaspoon of clove should be respected, as clove overwhelms quickly.
- The dredged sheetEqual parts cornstarch and powdered sugar on a bare pan was the period's release layer. Parchment does the job with less fuss, though a light dusting still gives the traditional pale, slightly sugary base.
- FoldingThe batter is meringue-leavened and has no chemical leavening. Fold the flour, spices, peel and almonds in with a light hand; overworking deflates the whites and gives a flat, hard cookie.
- YieldAbout two dozen cookies from teaspoon-sized drops. They keep well in a tin and are often better after a day or two.
The name points to Nuremberg, the Franconian city long identified with spiced baking; Nurnberger Lebkuchen is today a protected regional designation in Europe. The city's best-known version, Elisenlebkuchen, is built on ground nuts and beaten eggs with very little flour -- though this American drop cookie, with as much flour as almonds and no honey, is at best a distant relative rather than a direct adaptation of it. Anglicized spellings like "Neuremburghs" turn up in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century English-language cookbooks, where recipes were reprinted from book to book with the spelling drifting a little each time.