Lebkuchen is a delicious German Christmas treat. The English translation is gingerbread but it doesn’t actually contain any ginger. I got this excellent recipe for lebkuchen a few years ago from a German friend and have been making it every Christmas ever since.
Ingredients:
- 500g honey
- 375g sugar
- 2-3 eggs
- 15g cinnamon
- 4g ground cloves
- 25g baking soda
- 100g butter or margarine
- 250g ground hazelnuts
- 700g flour
- for the icing: mix 1 cup icing sugar with 2 tbsp water (you can make as much of this as you like, depending on how thick you want the sweet topping)
Heat the honey with the butter, then let it cool down a little. Beat the eggs with the sugar well. Then mix everything (except icing sugar and water) with the flour.
Spread the dough onto an oven tray and bake for approximately 25 minutes at 200°C.
Spread the icing sugar/water mixture on top immediately after taking it out of the oven. Cut dough in pieces and let it cool down.
Eat and enjoy!
I reckon even I can do this…I’m going to give it a try on Sunday!
Enjoy! I recommend buying hazelnut meal which is hazelnuts finely chopped. It’s hard to ground whole hazelnuts yourself without the right equipment and I think it’s nicer when the hazelnuts are chopped rather than ground up into a powder. It gives it more texture.
You know it’s a good picture if it makes you hungry. 🙂