Austrian Christmas Cookies: Lebkuchen (gingerbread-like)

Ingredients

700 g flour
500 g unrefined sugar
200 g of walnuts or hazelnuts
150 g of aranzini (candied orange peel)
10 g of baking soda
2 pitches of cinnamon (grated)
1 pitch of cloves (grated)
100 g of honey
4 eggs

What Lebkuchen is

The most classic of the Christmas cookies: Germanic style ginger bread (with no ginger, which is lost in translation). A plain and simple recipe as a classic cookie deserves. It can be "spiced up" with icing decorations, marzipan or chocolate coatings, nuts and candied fruits arranged to ornaments - but deep inside, it will remain the basic, proper Lebkuchen.

How to prepare Austrian Lebkuchen

Like most "classic" recipes, baking Lebkuchen is a fairly easy task. Mix all the ingredients to a proper, homogenous dough. Put it into a covered bowl and store it over night in a cool room or the fridge. The next day, spread the dough out to a thickness of about 1 centimetre and either cut it, or use moulds to make fancy shapes (if you lack moulds: try a glass that you turn upside town to make round Lebkuchen).

Decorate the Lebkuchen with candied fruits and whole nuts; finally spread a whipped egg over them with a paintbrush for the colour. Bake the Lebkuchen at 175 degrees Celsius for approximately 10 minutes. Add chocolate or sugar icing for further decorations.

More Austrian Recipes

Cooking Measures Conversion Tool

Cakes & Tarts: Altwiener Topfentorte - Biscuit Dough - Brandteigkrapferl - Marmorgugelhupf - Linzertorte - Malakowtorte - Metternichtorte - Sachertorte - Zwetschkenkuchen

Christmas Cookies: Hamburger Schnitten - Haselnuss Makronen - Ploberger Schnitten - Lebkuchen - Mürbe Doppelte - Früchtelebkuchen - Rumkugeln - Vanillekipferl - Kokosbusserl

Converting Kitchen Measures: US vs. Metric

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