Home

Ingredient Top 5 Meal / Dish Types Holidays/Special Occasions Ethnic / Global Cuisines Diets/Eating Plans Main Ingredient Flavors Equipment Difficulty / Experience Level

Home Dish Lebkuchen (German Christmas Cookies)

Lebkuchen (German Christmas Cookies)

Name: How to cook Lebkuchen (German Christmas Cookies) - cookcic.com
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 16 servings
Cuisine: Us

Introduce

Chef :

Felice

Lebkuchen (German Christmas Cookies)

Classic Christmas cookies of Germany and one of my favorite holiday sweets. They are very dense - mostly ground nuts and citrus peel, eggs and plenty of spice! This recipe came from a German baker. (Makes 16 lebkuchen)

Ingredient

Food ration :

16 servings

Cooking time :

45 mins

120 g

hazelnuts

120 g

hazelnut powder or almond powder

25 g

walnuts

50 g

candied orange peel

50 g

candied lemon peel

10 g

candied ginger

1/2

orange - use the zest

1/2

lemon - use the zest

20 g

lebkuchen spice mix

1/2

vanilla bean (scrap out the beans)

50 g

flour

eggs (180 g)

235 g

powdered sugar

oblaten wafers (if you can't find them, try using thin crackers or cookies)

Cooking instructions

* Step 1

Mix all the nuts, spices, citrus peel, vanilla and flour (every except for eggs and sugar and wafers) into a bowl.

* Step 2

Working in batches, grind the mixture into a rough meal using a food processor. Don't make it into a powder - leave some graininess so the cookies will have a good texture.

* Step 3

In a metal bowl, beat the eggs and powdered sugar together until all the white powder disappears. Heat some water in a big frying pan or pot on the stove, place the egg mixture bowl in the hot water and heat it until it's 40-43°C (you need to make it hot so it brings out the stickiness in the eggs).

* Step 4

Transfer to a mixer or use a beater, and beat the egg mix on low medium speed until it thickens up and turns a little white (You probably have to reheat the eggs at least one time). Beating them to this consistency will give your cookies a wonderful sticky texture!

* Step 5

Add the spice and nut mixture to the egg mixture and gently mix. Cover and let rest for one hour - this will help the mixture thicken up more.

* Step 6

After one hour, it's time to put the 'dough' on the oblaten! One good way to do this is place a wine glass on the table upside down, put an oblaten wafer on the bottom of the glass and use it as a stand to work on.

* Step 7

Using a dough scraper card, scoop up a big dollop of the lebkuchen dough and gently scrap it onto the oblaten wafer (scoop up more than you need so you have enough to work with)

* Step 8

While rotating the glass around, gently scrap the dough from the center to the sides - try to leave the center as high as possible like you are trying to form a pyramid. The middle should be nice and thick or else you'll end up with flat lebkuchen.

* Step 9

Place the finished lebkuchen on a baking sheet one by one.

* Step 10

Bake for 15 minutes at 200°C/400°F

* Step 11

Remove from oven. For the sugar coating: brush half of the cookies with thick sugar water/syrup immediately. After the syrup dries, it will give the cookies a nice white frosted look.

* Step 12

For the chocolate covered ones, you have to wait until they dry completely to do the chocolate. When cooled, melt chocolate in a double boiler (Put chocolate in a small metal bowl, heat a pan of water and place the bowl on the hot water until chocolate melts)