Basler Laekerli -- Have you tried these? Not very easy to find in the USA... in fact, one usually needs a Swiss friend who goes home to Basel from time to time, waits in the shop queue (preferably at Laekerli Huus, the mecca of laekerli emporia) with 1000 other people vying for souvenir sweets, and sneaks a box of these delicious little cookies home through Customs.
They look quite simple, just a thin, not-too-sweet gingerbread sort of cake-like cookie (does that make sense?) with a mottled white sugar glaze, and when you first open a new box they are actually not at their peak. Patience is rewarded if you can bear to wait a few days, with your laekerli box tucked into a larger tin (plastic outer wrap removed), because the cookies will acclimate and -- absolutely! -- become softer and more aromatic. When you bite into one and can taste the citron peel along with the mild spiciness, THEN you have yourself a box of supreme Swiss excellence. And hey, it isn't even chocolate (you can get chocolate-covered laekerli but that's just gilding the lily).
Of course the intrepid can learn to make them by hand... here again it helps to either BE Swiss or to KNOW someone from The Old Country who can guide you through the process -- luckily we fall into the latter group (can't help not being in the first group, alas). Handling the dough is the hardest part of the prep because it is very, very sticky; but once you get the hang of that it's all smooth sailing and delicious eating from here on out.
I'm going to ask my friend if it's OK to post her recipe for homemade laekerli, and, when I get her to say yes, will post it here, with how-to pictures, and we can explore this beautiful non-chocolate member of the Swiss confectionery pantheon together. Did I mention how perfectly they go with tea? You knew that.
xo, Trix
