As a child there was one food I was afraid of, The Lep Cookie. This Boonville Missouri and Farris family favorite sat in jars all around town “ripening” for months before being consumed at Christmas. The idea that a cookie got better the longer it aged did not tempt my refrigerator /expiration date trained taste buds (plus it was filled with raisins, walnuts and no chocolate). The Lep cookie isn’t just a legend in our family, but a Christmas cookie tray staple and a topic of discussion every holiday for many families in mid-Missouri.
Where do these flat dark brown cookies come from?
According to a 1974 article in the Boonville newspaper, the “Lebukuchen” became a popular cookie in mid-Missouri due to the scarcity of sugar. Brought to Boonville by german immigrants in the 1800’s, the Lebukuchen, was soon americanized to the German Honey Bar, The Lepp or Lep cookie. This cookie was traditionally exchanged by neighbors and served when anyone dropped by. Though there are many different local recipes all involve the same basic ingredients: flour, nuts, fruits, and sorghum molasses. The nuts are key. There are a lot of nut trees in area, so essentially they were a free ingredient for baking. These cookies were prepared around nut harvesting time, November, and eaten at Christmas.
The Lep cookie is so ingrained in the town’s culture that at the local hospital huge quantities were often baked and decorated like greeting cards for the patients and in 1928 each new Christmas infant took one home.
Now the question is, when did my family start making them?
One fall afternoon, Linda and I found my great grandmother’s recipe for Lep cookies. It was buried under magazine recipes and several different newspaper versions of Lep cookies. My grandmother was about to toss it out!
I have groaned about the Lep cookie for years, but to be totally honest, I ended up loving the that cookie after I baked it myself. I learned that, yes, it’s true you must let them chill before handling the dough or it will turn into a sticky tar mess. But it’s really tasty, kind of like a granola bar or fruit cake without the candied fruit. I ate them with tea like my mother’s side of the family. And frankly, I am forcing myself to wait until frosty afternoon in February to eat the rest. This is one cookie that is more a part of my DNA then I ever thought possible.
Because they keep forever, all Lep cookie recipes bake a ton.
Here is a condensed recipe:
Lep Cookies
Ingredients:
8 oz or 1 cup sorghum molasses or dark molasses
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup lard or Crisco
1 pint or 2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of buttermilk
2 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1/2 Tablespoon of each: clove, ginger, nutmeg, all spice
1 Tablespoon of cinnamon
1 cup of chopped mixed nuts ( I used pecans and walnuts)
1 cup of mixed fruit (I used raisins and dried cranberries)
Pinch of salt
Wax paper
How-To:
Heat molasses, lard and sugar and let cool.
Add baking soda to milk, then add all ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
Mix together until a wet dough forms.
Pour ingredients onto a sheet of wax paper. Use your hands to shape the dough into rolls. You won’t use your hands too long, the dough is very sticky. Once you have a log shape going, wrap the wax paper around the sides of the dough and use it to roll the dough into shape. I cut my dough into two rolls.
Wrap the wax paper around the dough and chill. Chilling can be over night or you can freeze it and bake it much later.
Slice and bake at 350 for 12 to 15 minutes.
To ripen them: Store in an air tight container (like a stone jar or plastic container) at room temperature for a month or freeze them (icing and all) and eat them until next year.
Lep cookies are served frosted and unfrosted. I choose to make a Browned Butter Frosting for mine. Here’s that recipe, but feel free to use any frosting you like!
Browned Butter Frosting (from Better Homes and Gardens)
In a small saucepan heat 1/2 cup butter over low heat till melted. Continue heating till butter turns a delicate brown. Remove from heat; pour into small bowl. Add 4 cups of sifted powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on low-speed till combined. Beat on medium high-speed, adding additional milk if needed to reach spreading consistency.
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Holy smokes! I have a recipe for this that was my grandmothers and she was born and raised in the Howard County area. She and my grandfather had a farm just on the other side of the river from Booneville down the road from the original Snoddy’s store. Her recipe is vague, and the messurements HUGE, so I am so excited to bake this today! Of course I will be waiting for a while to see if they are close enough to bring back those childhood memories from the farm. Here’s hoping, and thank you!
hi Chris, just wondering who was your grandmother, my grandparents on my mothers side were H.L. (roy) and Ruth Hull who moved from there to montgomery city
Lep cookies were the “only” Christmas cooky when I was little. My Grandmothers and Aunts all made them, as did Jim’s Grandmother. They will keep indefinitely and improve with age. Just put a slice of bread in the airtight container with the cookies, and replace it when it gets very dry. My recipe varies some from this one – mainly mine doesn’t have the mixed fruit in them.
My mother, Marie McClure made these too, but the recipe was much larger. My brother-in-law, Bill Young gave me a dif. recipe that his mother, Helen used to make. After promising him a batch this year, my sister-in-law Denise and I worked hard at replicating them. The recipe required lots of flour and our batter wasn’t in the least sticky. Refrigerating made the rolls very hard, so we warmed the dough up again and added eggs, which helped. We found an icing recipe in an old cookbook, listed with the lepp cookie recipe. It had an egg white and lemon juice in it and was really tasty. Upon google searching, denises son found this recipe that also was egg-less. We thought we had copied it down wrong! Interesting that this was local! Marla Stretz
I hope you are still getting email from your blog. I want to thank you for your Lep Cookie recipe. I am originally from Slater/Marshall and am now living in England. I thought of the cookies we used to have for Christmas when I was little and began searching for a Lep Cookie recipe. I found your blog and knew that if you were in Boonville it had to be THE recipe I remember. I am going shopping for ingredients in the morning and cookie production will begin immediately! : )
Thanks again! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season filled with cookies!
Thank you for your lovely note and I hope the cookies turned out! My Boonville grandma told me on the phone yesterday that she’s baking a batch Lep cookies for Christmas :> it wouldn’t be the holidays without them!
My mother, Ada Johnson would make them at the falling of the black walnuts, and put the rolls wrapped in wax paper and foil in the deep freezer. Oh my, what great memorys!
My great grandma’s recipe (Missouri late 1800’s) says “frost with hard white icing” Does anyone know what would be an authentic version of this. Would it be like a royal icing that dries hard?
Also, I can only find sorghum syrup in specialty gourmet shop $12 for 8oz. I substituted 1 part maple syrup + 1 part blackstrap molasses for 2 parts sorghum “molasses” in the old recipes. I am looking for a better suggestion.
Thanks for the memories. My Grandma made these and see also lived and died in Boonville. Her recipe didn’t give all of the measurements so it’s nice to get them. But her’s had 1 glass jelly jar. We are having a family reunion down in Boonville so I’m going to help my mom to make them and bring them down.
This is such a nice article. I grew up in Moniteau County, next to Cooper County,. My german and Swiss great-grandparents made these every year. My mom would get out her turkey roaster and all the ingredients and stir them up. They would be baked and ascend into the attic in a lard can to ripen. We would await the time when they could be eaten. These were so anticipated that we spent time picking up walnuts, getting sorghum molasses and all the ingredients. I remember driving about an hour away to get molasses. What wonderful memories. Christmas season is not the same without lep cookies. Thanks,
My mom just sent my dozen to California. Cant wait to receive them!
Very interesting to find this on Pinterest! My husband, Doug Farris, of Eugene, MO, loves Lep cookies.
I thought my family was the only one who had this tradition. My mom made these cookies every year for Christmas and the year she passed away(2011) she handed the tradition over to me. So this year marks the seventh year I’ve made them. Turns out, her cousin always made them every year too. So this tradition has been passed down for several generations on several branches on my family tree. My brother and sisters and their spouses have made this a part of their Christmas tradition for most of their lives. I made them early this year, as they do get better with age. I always wondered how the recipe came to be. That’s what brought me here. Turns out, my mom was born in Booneville in 1927.
Was just talking with a co-worker about Lep cookies. My mom made them in November and we’d enjoy in December.
I’m from Boonville Missouri so it was especially fun to come across your blog.
From Slater MO and I grew up with Lepp Cookies every year for Christmas. I threatened not to make them last year and my son, who is grown, informed me it would be a sad Christmas without Lepp Cookies. So I made them. We put the cookies in a 5 gallon and a 3 gallon popcorn tin. They last for most of the year. I introduced them to my husband when we married 28 years ago. He and his family like them as well.
I love your story about lep cookies; my feelings about them have also morphed from dislike to appreciation. I, too, am a Boonville girl. My mom was one of ten children growing up in the Morgan County area. I have the Hutchison family recipe which is similar to your recipe except that it has eggs, baking powder (in addition to the soda) and…mashed potatoes! I can just imagine my great grandmother having some leftover mashed potatoes and thinking I wonder what would happen if I add these. Voila! A new tradition is established. The quantity of flour used is not really specified in my recipe—7 1/2 c for a full batch; 3 3/4 c. for a half batch; “the flour may not be quite right but it is very important!’ I found that out the hard way when I attempted this recipe a few years ago and ended up with a very liquid almost cake batter consistency cookie. My mother and I laughed and laughed as we kept adding more and more flour; I’m unsure what our final measure was! Our family tradition is to chill the dough and drop the chilled dough, instead of rolling and cutting. They added a cut apple to keep the cookies soft throughout the winter.
I’m excited to try your recipe. Thanks so much for posting this. Hello to Linda!
I am a descendant of the Cooper County Gerhardt and Stegner families, and we make lepp cookies every Christmas. Our recipe was received from Frieda Gerhardt Haas. My Mom and Dad made them every year, and my daughter and nieces have taken over the annual responsibility. They use the same mixing bowl, “Spam” can cookie cutter and storage container my Mom used. We usually make about ten dozen, and they don’t last long unless you hide some.
Lep cookies have been a tradition in my family for generations. Surprisingly enough, I realize that your ancestors and mine were neighbors! The Reynolds family lived just down the road from the Farris family. Great find!
I am so happy to see a recipe that doesn’t say a gallon of molasses and pound of flour! I have thought about my grandma’s lep cookies for years but needed a manageable sized recipe! (my grandma made cookies for 10 kids plus grandkids so there had to be a lot)! I’m going to make some of these! My grandma lived in Cooper County (Blackwater and Lamine and Boonville) for all of her life.
Oh the memories! I still have my grandmother’s recipe. She made the every year and we enjoyed them right thru summer. After my grandmother died, the tradition did also. My mother and I baked them a couple of years before before she passed. I still remember that and always will.
Not sure if you will get this. I had a dilemma of having some sorghum I wanted to get rid of and knew my family recipe was for a HUGE batch. So I googled Lep cookies and low and behold… found your condensed version. I’m from Glasgow and my sister lives in New Franklin. I’m like you, not sure I liked them growing up, but now that I’m an adult… I LOVE them… or maybe it’s just the memory that I love! Thank you! Marcia
I just found my grandmother’s recipe, (Ellen SlaughterJohnson) in a box, but it was not as complete with quantities and baking time as this recipe. I loved these cookies as a kid and hope to make some this year. Thank you to the Farris family.
I’ve been looking for my Great Aunt Ella Brockway’s Lepp cookie recipe and I bet this is it! She was from Arrow Rock MO near Blackwater MO – and that is also right near Boonville. I am so excited to make these and also to share the recipe with a friend. If anyone here remembers the Brockway family from Blackwater and Arrow Rock, MO I’d love to hear from you.
My grandmother made these by the big popcorn tins for my grandfather. She made them in the fall for him to have all summer. I remember these fondly, as he shared them with us when we visited!
My family came from Boonville since the 1800’s. My grandmother, mother and aunts always made Lep cookies. We never had fruit in them, only walnuts, and only frosted them with powdered sugar. I never participated in making them, I hated the smell of them baking. And Im allergic to cinnamon. But the recipe had been passed down from my great grandmother Friedrich( fred rick) from 1889.