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Neuremburghs
2 eggs 3/4 cup flour 1/3 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon clove 1 tablespoon orange peel, finely cut Grated rind 1/2 lemon ¾ 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 meringue-based drop cookie in the Nuremberg style, leavened only by beaten egg white. The hinge is the egg foam: everything else is folded in, so overworking the batter flattens the cookies.
- Oven temperatures"Slow" for toasting the almonds is roughly 300F; "moderate" for the cookies is roughly 350F, though period usage of both terms varies. Watch the almonds closely and stir once or twice, since they brown unevenly in a shallow layer.
- Jordan almondsIn this period the term means large, plump sweet almonds from Malaga, sold whole and unblanched, not the sugar-shelled confection now sold under that name. Use whole blanched almonds, sliced crosswise into thin coins.
- BlanchingCover the almonds with boiling water for a minute; the skins slip off between finger and thumb. Dry them well before cutting or they will steam rather than brown.
- The dredged sheetCornstarch and powdered sugar in equal parts, sifted over the pan, replaces greasing. It keeps a high-sugar meringue batter from welding to the tin and leaves a faint dry bloom on the base. Parchment lightly dusted with the same mixture works as well.
- Folding orderThe flour and spices go in before the toasted almonds, as the recipe directs. Fold with a spatula, not a spoon, and stop as soon as no dry flour shows.
- Spooning and spreadThese are drop cookies, not rolled and cut ones. Teaspoon-sized mounds set two inches apart; the batter spreads modestly and firms as it cools.
- Doneness and storageBake until the tops are dry and just coloured at the edges, roughly 12 to 15 minutes, and lift them off while barely warm. As with many Lebkuchen, they may harden on the first day; the traditional remedy is to keep them in a tin with a slice of apple.
Nuremberg was the gingerbread city of the German-speaking world, and bakers of Lebkuchen are documented there from the late medieval period, formally organised as a distinct Lebkuechner trade by the seventeenth century, working with the spices, honey and almonds that reached the city along the southern trade routes. The Nuremberg style is distinguished from ordinary molasses gingerbread by its small proportion of flour relative to nuts and eggs, and by its spicing with clove, cinnamon and candied citrus peel rather than ginger alone; the classic versions are baked on thin wafer discs, though household adaptations like this one drop the batter straight onto a dusted sheet. It appears in an American cooking-school book, spelled phonetically as "Neuremburghs."