Lebkuchen recipe

Our delicious Lebkuchen recipe is the perfect festive treat. Serve with hot tea or mulled wine or try packaging them up as an edible gift.

Lebkuchen is a traditional German (opens in new tab) gingerbread biscuit (opens in new tab) synonymous with Christmas Markets (opens in new tab) and the festive season.They’re beautifully spiced with cinnamon (opens in new tab), clove and mace, and have some wonderful citrus notes from orange and/or lemon zest.

Our easy Lebkuchen cookies (opens in new tab) are soft and chewy, unlike their crunchy gingerbread counterpart. Classically Lebkuchen are heart or star-shaped and finished with icing but you can bake them any shape you like.

Feeling really fancy? Try drizzling with melted chocolate, a mix of white and dark would look very attractive. They’re great served with hot chocolate, a cup of tea or coffee, or even a hot mug of mulled wine.

Ingredients

• 100g honey
• 100g muscovado sugar
• 90g unsalted butter
• 250g self raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1tbsp ground ginger
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• ½tsp mixed spice
• ¼tsp ground nutmeg
• 100g ground almonds
• Zest of 1 orange
• 100g icing sugar
• 1-2tbsp water or orange juice

Method

1. In a small pan, melt the honey, muscovado and butter together, set aside.  In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and spices, along with the ground almonds. Add the zest of the orange, pour over the butter mixture and mix into a dough. Wrap in baking paper and chill for 15-20 mins.
2. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. On a floured surface, roll the dough to 1cm thick and cut desired shapes. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment and bake for 8-10 mins, these want to still be soft when baked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. 
3. Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar and liquid together until smooth, dip the top of the biscuits in the glaze and leave to set. If you desire, melt some dark chocolate and coat the bottom of the biscuits. Leave to set.

The German biscuit lebkuchen is very much like our gingerbread. Due to the cinammon and other spices ther are generally quite sweet, nutty and have a spicy aroma. Like gingerbread, lebkuchen is a nice, soft biscuit, and if you add chopped nuts can also have a delicious crunch.

These biscuits are so delicious they don't really need to be decorated, but if you wanted to gift them as a present or just elevate their look for your own enjoyment it's super easy! As they can have a nice flat surface, you could use royal icing to decorate your biscuits.

You can do as intricate or as simple a design you like, just make sure you get the right consistency of icing so it doesn't run all over the place. You can follow our easy guide on how to make royal icing to help you.