Lebkuchen-Schmidt

Gingerbread Trio Black Elise

The "Black Elise", a gingerbread with a dark, sweet secret: It is based on an old family recipe. In 1927, E. Otto Schmidt decided not only to sell Lebkuchen, but to bake it himself in the future. How hard could it be? He experimented with flour, nuts and spices in his kitchen. Some things succeeded at the first attempt and were immediately produced for sale in the bakery. He rejected the others right away.

But one recipe was particularly close to his heart: It was delicious, but it was always lacking the final touch. Ginger? No, too spicy. Vanilla? Also not, too sweet. More cinnamon? Makes the gingerbread bitter. Oh, oops - in the heat of stirring the dough, the cocoa tin had tipped over and emptied its contents exactly into the dough bowl. The dough had become completely black due to the dark powder. Annoyed, he dunked his index finger into the mixture - a pity about the expensive ingredients... but wait: it didn't taste bad at all. On the contrary, it was even extremely tasty! Only the fact that cocoa was so expensive at the time prevented production for sale. E. Otto Schmidt therefore baked Christmas gingerbread exclusively for his family according to this recipe.