OK Missouri: What are Lep Cookies?

Cookies are wonderful. Everyone has a favorite type of cookie (shout out to my chocolate chip crew!) During the Christmas season cookie production hits overload in the Midwest. Moms, aunts, grandmas, neighbors, co-workers, and friends work their cookie game.

It's Christmas cookie season! Are you already hoarding?

The Midwest cookie game is primarily about tradition. Yes, there are those who like to get creative with their cookies, but usually that’s a decoration thing with sugar cookies. Christmas cookie season is mainly about delicious comfort. Many get tins of cookies from the above list of cookie makers within your circle. These tins can be loaded with one style of cookie, if your cookie baker is a pleaser and knows what you like best. Others however over pack that tin with lots of different types of cookies. Many are cookies that you only get around Christmas.

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A quick search for popular Christmas cookies in Missouri serves up the usual suspects, and then I noticed something called “Lep Cookies”…??? I dug deeper to find out about these cookies that are a mid-Missouri standard, that somehow evaded my mouth even though I lived in mid-Missouri for almost a decade.

Lep Cookies = German Lebkuchen

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Turns out “Lep Cookies” is a name that has been “Missouried”. It’s a shortened version of the German “Lebkuchen”. Roughly the name translates to gingerbread, but German gingerbread is not like the gingerbread cookies we’ve come to know in the USA. Lebkuchen are soft and more cake like than a dense cookie, and full of winter flavors like ginger, honey, cinnamon, and nutmeg. You also have the aging process to wrangle with. Usually, the best cookies are right off the baking tray and into your mouth. Lebkuchen traditionally get aged in an airtight container for a few weeks so the flavors can mingle and meld.

If you make Lep cookies this time of year, make sure you label them for those who may not have had the pleasure of sampling them. If you receive Lep cookies by the tin, share a few. Stop hoarding these traditional German cake cookies. “Tis the season for deliciousness!