Cookies from the city of Basel

If you visit Basel, try o find a picturesque street named Imbergasslein – or Ginger Lane – which will be easy to recognize when you get close by the spicy aroma filling the air even today. That was the place where a baker’s guild distinguished by creating new recipes experimented with the novel spice ingwer – ginger – some few hundred years ago, and produced what was probably the first gingerbread.

Basel cookies recipe

If a visit to Basel is not in your near future, you can still capture the aroma from Imbergasslein when you make these Basel style cookies at home.

Ingredients

Yield: 26 cookies

Procedure

1. Place honey and sugar into a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over a medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, transfer to a large glass bow, and let cool for 20 minutes.
2. Mix egg and kirsch into honey and sugar. Stirring to blend and a little at a time, add flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Finally, mix in almonds and lemon peel and turn into smooth dough.
3. Place dough onto a floured surface. Knead, adding in enough remaining flour, until the dough is soft and no longer sticky. Shape the cookie dough into a ball, wrap in plastic film. Chill in the fridge for 2 hours.
4. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
5. On a lightly floured sheet of aluminum foil or grease proof paper, roll dough into a rectangle of even thickness. Transfer grease proof paper and dough to a 10x15-inch baking sheet leaving 1-inch around for the dough to expand. Bake on the middle rack for about 15 minutes, or until top is golden brown and center springs back when lightly touched. Remove from oven.
6. While the cookies are baking, mix the powdered sugar and liquid for the glaze in a small bowl. Use a pastry brush to spread glaze over the warm cake.
7. Lift paper with still warm cake to a cutting board. Cut into 2-inch squares. Remove any remaining paper and leave them to cool.
   

Cooking Tips

These cookies taste great when they have been standing for a while. If you store them between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container for 3-4 days before serving, and compare them to ready made cookies, you will be able to tell the difference.

The Swiss name for these cookies is Basler leckerli.

Kirsch is a liquor used only for flavor. If you want to avoid it altogether, substitute 1 tsp kirsch with ¼ tsp almond extract. The amount of kirsch in the original recipe is much larger, as it is the main liquid used to form the dough, but it has already been substituted with beaten egg.

Recipe type

Dessert, Snack.