Name: Chocolate Gingerbread (Weiche Lebkuche mit Tschaklett)
Yield: 16 portions
Cuisine: German
Ingredients: ½ cup (60 g) unsalted butter; ½ teaspoon sea salt; ½ cup (125 ml) sour cream or buttermilk; 2 cups (250 g) organic spelt flour (or substitute double sifted whole-wheat flour); 1 teaspoon water; white sand sugar (see note); 1 tablespoon grated orange zest; 1 teaspoon ground cassia or cinnamon; 2 ounces (60 g) unsweetened baking chocolate; fine cake crumbs or white breadcrumbs; 1 tablespoon grated ginger root; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup (250 ml) unsulfured molasses

Preparation info

16
portions

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking

By William Woys Weaver

Published 1993

About

The Pennsylvania Dutch make two types of gingerbread: a cake like the recipe here and a cookie. The cookie is by far the older of the two. The cake evolved in the nineteenth century with the coming of the cookstove and the invention of baking powder. Called Weiche Lebkuche (soft gingerbread) in Pennsylfaanisch, this is the cake most Americans now associate with the word gingerbread.

Johanna Portman’s Union County recipe for chocolate-flavored gingerbre