My mother passed along some of my Oma’s recipes, and although I can translate them in bits and pieces, I’m having a bit of trouble with some of the words. I’d love to be able to make some of her dishes, so if anyone can help out, I’d be truly appreciative.
I’ve consolidated all of the handwritten recipes into a downloadable PDF file which is right here. Thank you, everyone, ahead of time, for whatever help you can provide.
September 18th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Here’s the translation of the first one:
Nuremberg-Style Gingerbread
Ingredients for the dough:
70 gram ghee (could also be lard, word can mean both)
1 tsp (about 5g) cinnamon
1 knife’s tip full of ground cloves
150g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp cocoa
100g candied lemon peel
100g candied orange peel
200g almonds or hazelnuts
100 (prob. also g although it doesn’t say) raisins
250g wheat flour
1/8 l milk
1 package baking powder
Baking wafers
Ingredients for the icing:
150g powdered sugar
2 tbsp hot water
1 flask Dr. Oetker Rum aroma
To sprinkle
a little bit of colored sugar
To make the dough:
Melt the ghee in a pan, add spices and sugar. Let cool a little bit, then also add the eggs. Whip thoroughly. Add cocoa, chopped lemon and orange peel, grated nuts, milk. At the end, mix flour and baking powder, sieve into the dough. Smear pieces of the dough onto “Backoblaten” (baking wafers), dough should be finger-thick. Put on a clean baking sheet and bake at “light heat” for about 30 minutes. Immediately after baking, put on icing and sprinkle with sugar.
If you know of any source for the candied peeled orange and lemon, please let me know, I’ve looked for it for ages (I’m a German living in Columbus, and even Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati doesn’t have it). All the table- and teaspoons should not be the American ones, but the normal ones from your cutlery. Baking wafers are… hard to explain, but Jungle Jim sells them, google for “Backoblaten” for a picture. A package baking powder is about 1 1/2 tablespoons. The rum aroma is just stuff that some German company sells, substitute for a dash of real rum.
Hope that helps - feel free to send me an e-mail if you ever need another translation!