Recipe: Delicious Lebkuchen (German Gingerbread)

Lebkuchen (German Gingerbread). Lebkuchen - German Gingerbread cookie is part of our World Cuisine Recipe Series. Lebkuchen is a soft gingerbread cookie frosted with sweet & tangy lemon frosting. You can find these cookies hanging in every German bakery at Christmas. Nürnberger Lebkuchen is just one of many types of German gingerbread popular at Christmastime. The spices had to be imported for all Lebkuchen, so cities with strong trading partners had an advantage over small, agricultural villages when creating new types of Lebkuchen.

Lebkuchen are German version of gingerbread but they are usually made with nuts, candied peel, cocoa and additional spices. I've made my own Lebkuchen spice mix and omg this is A BOMB! Covered in chocolate these cookies are extremely addictive so don't tell me later that I didn't warn you. You can have Lebkuchen (German Gingerbread) using 11 ingredients and 6 steps. Here is how you cook it.

Ingredients of Lebkuchen (German Gingerbread)

1. It's 300 g of cane sugar.
2. Prepare 5 of eggs, medium size.
3. Prepare 500 g of ground hazelnuts.
4. Prepare 15 g of gingerbread spice mix.
5. It's 0.5 tbsp of cinnamon.
6. You need 25 g of candied orange peel.
7. You need 25 g of candied lemon peel.
8. You need 0.5 tsp of lemon peel.
9. You need 1 of knive point of hartshorn or potash.
10. You need of wafer paper, diameter 70 mm.
11. You need of dark couverture chocolate.

German Lebkuchen are similar to gingerbread cookies, but they are very soft with a little more complex spice flavor. Gingerbread Recipes Are Old (And Wonderful) My mom says it is a very old recipe from Volynia (an area around the border of today's Poland and Ukraine, where German settlers used to live). Those early lebkuchen recipes included various imported spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, anise, cloves, and of course, ginger These German gingerbread cookies, or Lebkuchen, are such a traditional cookie to have for Christmas. They're so very easy to make, that there's no reason to buy them.

Lebkuchen (German Gingerbread) instructions

1. Mix eggs and cane sugar until foamy. Chop candied orange and lemon peel. Since I am not a big fan of them I chop them rather finely so I do not bite on it in the Lebkuchen..
2. Add the rest of the ingredients. First the spices, potash/hartshorn and lemon peel, mix throughly. Than the candied lemon and orange peel and the ground hazelnuts..
3. Than add the candied lemon and orange peel and the ground hazelnuts and mix throughly..
4. Spread with a knife on the wafer paper and put on a baking tray with baking parchment. Let sit in the oven overnight. The photo shows how they look the nex morning..
5. The next morning: Take out the baking tray(s). Preheat the oven to 130 °C. Bake the cookies for 40 min. Let cool. (Photo: to the left the baked Lebkuchen, to the right how they look after a nights` lodging in the cold oven.).
6. Glaze with dark couverture chocolate and decorate to taste with almonds or candied cherries. Enjoy! But only after the flavours had two weeks in the bisquit tin to mingle... ;).

However, the usual ingredients for these are not readily available outside of Germany, unless, of course, you have a German deli close by. This is a traditional Christmas treat, soft & chewy with many wonderful spices. Use your favourite cookie cutters to create an army of little men, a collection of hearts or a herd of reindeer! "Lebkuchen" (gingerbread) is also known as "Honigkuchen" (honeycake) in some parts of Germany. The closest German equivalent of the gingerbread man is the Honigkuchenpferd ("honey cake horse"). Traditional lebkuchen, a German gingerbread variation with glaze.