Decoy Food and Christmas Magic: The Deceptive Power of Pfefferkuchen auf dem Blech
Have you ever baked or cooked something purposely to throw someone off the scent of something else? I have. All the time. I’m a picky eater and, when it comes to sweets, my kids aren’t. So, if there’s something I’m really craving and looking forward to having in my lunches or available for an after-supper snack, I’ll often make other desserts, ones they like better or as much so they’ll leave my preferred snack alone. This type of misdirection is one way I, as a parent, use decoy food.
I also hide ingredients my kids don’t like into their meals. There are lots of cookbooks out there to help trick kids into eating healthy. I, for example, sometimes puree roasted vegetables into sauces so they won’t know they’re there. You may grate zucchini in loaves and chocolate cakes. Even if when a person values honesty and truth, as parents, we can be willing to lie to our children so they are eating healthy food.
One decoy that is especially relevant to the discussion on traditional foods is the Pfefferkuchen auf dem Blech. My Oma always made this cake around this time of year. For those who don’t know, December 6th is Saint Nicholas Day, a day when German children around the world wake up to find treats and sometimes small presents in the shoes they’ve left outside of their doors the night before. One of these treats is a Lebkuchen cookie made in the shape of Saint Nicholas.
More on Lebkuchen another time, but in case this holiday is new to you, you should know that Lebkuchen is a German gingerbread-like cookie. Gingerbread and Lebkuchen are similar in that both are rolled and cut to make the desired shape. But they are nothing alike in flavour or consistency. Instead of ginger, Lebkuchen is made with honey or another form of sweet syrup (our family uses Golden Lyle Syrup when it’s available for a good price), allspice, cinnamon, cloves, and almond or rum flavouring (another ingredient that can be difficult to find in store but that is readily available on Amazon). Where gingerbread can be dry, Lebkuchen is especially sticky. It’s the kind of dough that will burn your mixer, and requires a lot of hand washing.
For this cake recipe, I used my parents’ honey. You can check them out on Facebook @WeiskopfHoney&MapleSyrup.
Because we only make these cookies at Christmas time, Lebkuchen smells like Christmas. When you add the spices to the syrup, the house instantly smells like the holidays. When I make them, I’m pulled back to memorable moments of my childhood, especially the massive container my mother had to fit all the batches she made. Lebkuchen is something that people in my family look forward to all year and then eat as much of as possible, knowing we won’t have any more for 12 months.
Pfefferkuchen, what I’ve always known as Christmas Cake, is integral to our family’s relationship with Saint Nicholas Day. Because the cookies have such a distinct smell, my Oma needed to fill the house with the smell of Christmas in some other, less obvious way. Pfefferkuchen auf dem Blech was the answer. My cousins remember this cake as the Advent Cake, something that came with the first week of Advent which is also near the time Oma needed to be making her cookies. Even if she would have made the cookies while my father and aunts were at school or in bed, she needed a decoy, something to throw her kids off the scent of what was really going on. This cake is so much like the cookies that it is the perfect culinary deception.
My mom rarely made this cake when I was growing up. I remember it at Oma’s, but not in our house. That’s because my mother didn’t need this decoy. The tradition in our family was that Oma made the grandkids’ cookies until they turned a specific, adult, age; a time when we knew Saint Nicholas didn’t really exist. But that meant my mother didn’t need to make this cake. The same system has continued with my children. I don’t make their Saint Nicholas cookies because my mom makes them. That also means that I don’t need to make this cake. Since it’s not one I grew up with, I don’t make it at all (except of course to share it with you!). But Oma didn’t have the luxury of a mother to help her out when she and Opa arrived in Canada. She was here, alone, needing to figure something out if she was to successfully keep this German tradition alive. Pfefferkuchen worked. It became a dessert she made every year to mark the beginning of Advent, the beginning of the Christmas season, and to cover her magical tracks.
This cake allows us to reflect on how we use food to create special moments for the next generations and to question how we use our power as parents to feed our children the stories we want them to believe in. If Saint Nicholas Day wasn’t an important tradition to continue, then this cake may never have been picked up out of the Dr. Oekter Cookbook my Oma found it in in those early years when my grandparents immigrated to Canada. It doesn’t sound, from my discussion with Oma or my interaction with her brother’s grandson, that this is a cake that had any significance to the Hoffmann family of her childhood. The fact that I still know and share this story, is because the tradition matters to our German heritage. It’s one my cousins remember fondly. Its story as a decoy has always stayed with me. It’s been waiting, hidden in my cookbook for years, waiting for the day when I would make it. I’ve never had to, but I haven’t wanted to lose it either.
Interested in Oma’s Pfefferkuchen auf dem Blech recipe? Stay tuned for the next blog!
There are lots of great recipes for Lebkuchen availble online and a quick Google or Pinterest search will yield many options. In our family, as you can see in the picture above, we use a template of an old-fashioned Saint Nicholas that has been passed down from my Oma. You can also buy a Saint Nicholas cookie cutter online. Amazon even sells a Krampus cookie cutter which could be a fun spoof when the kids get older or for other occasions.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Please read my Disclaimer page.