Christmas Cookies of my Youth

[LuAnnB]

I say of my youth, because we don't do much backing around my house, even though my children would love it.

There were all sorts of cookies we used to make.  The first were Lebkuchen.  They had to be made like Thanksgiving weekend, because after baking they would turn hard as a rock - literally, you could break teeth.  So we put them in an airtight container with some cut-up pieces of apple and they "mellowed" over the course of a couple of weeks.

We also made "sour cream cookies" - sugar and chocolate, "Russian Tea Cookies" and the cut-out sugar cookie variety.

We also used to make "Zupfe" a braided bread that was sinfully rich - the recipe had like 15 eggs, heavy cream, etc. in it.  Then besides loaves to give away for Christmas, we would keep one for Christmas breakfast, to be had with real butter (otherwise we were a margarine family), as well as a variety of toppings, jams, jellies, honey, etc.

Those were simpler days. :)