11mo ago

Has anyone tried to bake lembas bread?

What recipe did you use, and how did it turn out?

33 comments

A girl I was thinking about dating made lembas by making some slight modifications to shortbread cookies.
As for how it turned out, I married her.
- Can confirm, modified shortbread is supreme lembas, we make it every year for our watchthrough.
  Honey instead of sugar, ghee or danish butter (lower water content), and a little more baking powder.
  Finish it off in the dehydrator for long term storage not that they ever last the next day lol.
  You can get good fresh wrapping leaves at any asian food store.
  
  We are now officially internet friends.
- Is her name Rosie by any chance?
Ingredients:
20 loaves of bread
Instructions:
Place in hydraulic press
Compress to smallest size possible
Tried it, ate four loaves, not very filling.
- New York bagels. Boiled, not baked. Super dense, not the airy stuff you can get frozen. So thick they barely fit in my slicer.
  
  All bagels are baked. They are boiled before they are baked but they are definitely baked.
When last I looked, something akin to hardtack was what Tolkien had in mind. As for a recipe, I recommend looking to the Scandinavians
- clack clack
- Tasting History with Max - Eat like a Pirate, Hardback and Grog
- I think this is correct and based on my understanding hard tack is difficult to eat without moistening it.
  
  I'd have to disagree on the moistening bit: try it with lotsa butter and various toppings of your choice, like cheese, cold cuts or jam or any combination thereof. Super tasty!
German Stollen bread is delicious and filling, keeps for weeks if not months if well packed. It’s one of my favorite breads and what I thought was the real world thing that inspired Tolkien to write lembas as he did. Needless to say, I was very disappointed in the movie version of it.
- Stollen is cake, not bread!
  But I agree, the movie version was more what I imagined cram would be.
  
  I dunno, cram was dense packed bricks of bean and grain. That's closer a look to stollen I think
  
  No it’s not.
- Stollen bread
  After googling some images I am kind of sure that Tolkien elves would only stare at that in horror.
Are you looking for something that looks and tastes like elvish bread could look and taste like or are you looking for a super filling and nutritious bread? Or a movie accurate version?
For the former, I don't know what you imagine. Look for a bread recipe you envision as elvish and play around with it, adding spices.
For the latter, german Pumpernickel is the go-to bread.
For a movie-like lembas, go for shortbread
i mean, just regular scones feel like they get the vibe right: super dense and tasty.
slather them in butter/marmalade/whatever and enjoy.
My kids used to bring home whatever pre-packaged food they didn’t eat at school, and one of those things was this whole wheat cake donut flavored with honey.
Why the school would think that 3rd graders would like that is beyond me… buuut the first time I tried one, lembas popped into my head. Not for the texture or its ability to fill my stomach with one small bite, though. As an adult, they were so tasty. I got real sad when the school figured out what’s what and stopped buying them.
1 cup Bannock is basically lambas bread, and it’s delicious
- Bannocks also powered the last Scottish army - the Jacobite incursion into England
- I love Bannock! Good stuff.
Am going to try this recipe but I need to replace the almond elements and was thinking cashew pieces and corn meal, but also maybe walnut pieces and a different nut meal if it's readily available.
https://www.teawithtolkien.com/blog/lembas

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