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Lebkuchen recipe a la ZA for @julesmrobertsf1. 'Tante Bettina' is my godmother, although it's not ACTUALLY her recipe. It is much older, adapted by a German woman who worked as a cook & cleaner for a rich family who (together) immigrated to South Africa.
Many of the ingredients asked for in the original recipe were not available here, so through experimentation, this old German cook managed to source local alternatives (e.g. the Bicarbonate of soda) long before the era of Googling baking substitutes.
You can also see the local adaption in the addition of Margarine/Butter - traditionally, Lebkuchen did not include any fat; 20C South African baking is also rife with the use of highly processed ingredients, such as hard margarine & syrup (suggested instead of butter & honey).
To this day, working with German baking books in ZA is a nightmare, because the recipes always ask for '1 Paeckchen' (one packet) of something or other, often 'Vanille Zucker'. Sometimes there is a call for '1 Blatt Gelatine' (one sheet of gelatine). What ARE these quantities?
And neither are easy to come by here - our gelatine is usually powdered (although the sheets are becoming more popular now) & vanilla-infused sugar is not a typical baking supply. In our household, we thus often rely on home-made alternatives.
Even my grandmother continued to rely on measurements she learnt as a young woman in Germany. Her recipes would often include '1 Paeckchen Dr Oetker Vanille Pudding'. We imported it for her, along with Dr Oetker Tortenguss (again, the gelatine!) & her Nur Ein Tropf mouthwash.
I've made my own adaptations: neither my partner nor I can tolerate wheat, so I've started making a gluten-free alternative! So the recipe keeps changing.
There you have it. I was asked for a recipe & it turned into a thread :D
