Lebkuchen, German, Spiced, Ginger, Christmas Cookies

So I had a gap of an hour in my morning schedule yesterday and I wanted to take part in the wonderful Belleau Kitchen’s Random Recipe Challenge this month, being the month of Christmas fun and festivities, I’m in the mood for a challenge!

This month it’s a great idea to choose a cookbook that I would like to giveaway to a charity shop in the hope it brings happiness and foodie fun to someone else out there for Christmas! This book Gifts from the Kitchen, I have had for a while and used most of the recipes in it, but feel it might benefit someone who needs a spark of creatiity or ideas for gifts that they make want to make themselves.

It’s not just for Christmas, but covers recipes in relation to the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter.. some great ideas like chutneys, jams, drinks, biscuits, cookies, marinated cheeses..

So I randomly flipped the page to find what recipe I will create and to my luck it landed on  Lebkuchen. This is a traditional German cookie, loaded with honey & spices, which is baked at Christmas time and decorated with royal icing. Or in this case you can use icing sugar as a glaze or dunk them in chocolate…

This is what I did and oce I tried my first lebkuchen I remembered I think I’ve had these before and well I’m not the biggest fan to be honest! But I can see you have to be a certain person that likes those kind of gingery, spiced, treacle biscuits.. it’s a particular taste, just not mine!

However this recipe worked well, everything went to plan!

Lebkuchen

Makes about 25 biscuits!

3 level tbsp of clear honey

4 tbsp black treacle

50 unsalted butter

75g dark muscovado sugar

225g self raising flour

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 teaspoons ground ginger

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

pinch of cloves

pince of ground allspice

pinch of salt

50g ground almonds

1 tbsp finely chooped stem ginger

grated zest of 1/2 orange

1 large egg beaten

Glaze:

175g icing sugar , juice of 1/2 lemon

Chocolate melted

Method:

Measure honey and treacle in pan, add butter and sugar over low heat to melt. When smooth, leave to cool.

In a large bowl, sift flour, spices and salt. Add ground almonds, ginger, grated orange zest, combine. Make well in centre, add beaten egg and treacle mixture, use spatula to mix well, cover with clingfilm leave in the fridge.

Preheat oven Gas 4, line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Lightly dust work surface with flour, roll out cookie dough, till 1 cm thickness, use cookie cutters to cut out shapes.

Bake in oven till golden brown, about 15 minutes, prepare glazes. Melt chocolate in one bowl and mix icing sugar, lemon and hot water for lemon glaze. Brush cookies with glaze or dip in chocolate!

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