My Grandma Scott made Lebkuchens, which are German sorghum cookies, every Christmas. My Great-Grandma was a German immigrant to the United States so much of heritage is infused with German tradition and recipes.
If you aren't familiar with sorghum, it's a plant that is used for livestock feed. Certain varieties can have a syrupy sweetener extracted from it that is used for human consumption as well. So it's kinda like honey and kinda like molasses but not exactly the same. It's hard to describe the taste. Sweet, but not sickeningly sweet. Earthy, but a bit pungent. I've found people either like it or they don't. I'm lucky our local small town grocery store carries it as sometimes I've struggled to find it in larger stores.
It has a thick syrup consistency but color wise, it's much deeper than honey. You can use it much like honey on biscuits or toast.
The recipe starts a bit different from most cookie recipes since it has you boil the sorghum then melt the butter into the warm syrup. I've never looked up the calories on sorghum and I don't plan to ... I'll just stay in my own little world and pretend this is a calorie free recipe!
It makes a bit batch of cookies and the most important part of the recipe is the refrigerate overnight! The dough is stiff and sticky so it can be a challenge to roll it out without getting too much flour in it.
I like to roll out 1/4 of the batch at a time, cut into rectangles and bake. Grandma was a bit more precise and used a straight-edge to make sure each cookie was the same size! As I told one friend, they aren't the prettiest cookie but they eat like a meal!
There is a boiled sugar icing that Grandma brushed on top of each cookie after it cooled. I've been skipping the icing the last few years since it makes them easier to store.
So now you know my favorite cookie and a bit more about them!
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