Beautifully Preserved - The Second Life of Lebkuchen Chests and Tins

Christmas has passed and the last of the decorations have been put away and the pine needles from the tree are long gone.

The Lebkuchen from one of my favorite Lebkuchen Schmidt chests – the Advertising Column - is all eaten up and now it just stands there – empty and alone. Well, not quite alone…it has the company of other chests and tins whose contents have been consumed. Beautiful chests and tins awaiting a new destiny!

Lots of you have told us that you store the chests and tins in your closets and pantries waiting till next Christmas when you will fill them with your homemade cookies and give them away. But those of us with small apartments don’t have that much storage space and we don’t have the luxury of keeping things around that don’t have a purpose.

For many the Advertising Column finds its place in the kitchen where it (they) now houses sugar, flour or oats. Rather than using up precious cupboard space these bulky items can now be stored on the counter top where they are within convenient reach and are part of the décor at the same time – they give a kitchen a certain retro chic.

Every year Lebkuchen Schmidt designs new motifs for the many chests and tins it introduces. The Advertising Column tin always contains an assortment of choice Nuremberg Oblaten-Lebkuchen. The advertisments on the outside of the tin are authentic vintage German ads.

These advertising columns can be seen all over Nuremberg - the city famous for producing the very best Lebkuchen. In fact, Lebkuchen Schmidt has two large advertising columns outside of its main facility in Nuremberg. And of course the ads on these columns are exclusively for Lebkuchen - Lebkuchen Schmidt!

But the Advertising Column Tin is not the only tin from Schmidt. Our customers have told us that they use the smaller tins for stationery supplies and as pencil holders; as colourful collections above upper cabinets or mantles. One customer wrote us about the year she baked goodies and gave her classmates the Christmas treats in her empty tins..."Needless to say, everyone was quite pleased" she added!

The top re-use of Lebkuchen Tins is...drum roll please...for storing ground coffee. And I would agree! Coffee would even taste better when it's coming out of a beautiful tin!

What do you use your Lebkuchen Schmidt chests and tins for?

(Adapted from Lebkuchen Schmidt's German-language Blog)