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170g butter, room temperature
100g brown caster sugar
1 large free range organic egg
45g molasses
1 tablespoon clear honey
420g Zeeland flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon powder
1½ teaspoon cookie spices
1/2 teaspoon salt
The German Lebkuchen are world famous! These Christmas biscuits are beautifully decorated with white and/or coulored icing. There are two types of Lebkuchen with the same name, they taste like a Dutch gingerbread or they taste just like taai-taai (also Dutch).
Both are very tasty and real Christmas biscuits! The taai-taai hearts and gingerbread men are for sale on every Christmas market in Germany. But today we are not making the chewy taai-taai, but funny little gingerbread biscuits. We make half a recipe and still have two and half baking tray with mini biscuits!
How to make Lebkuchen
Start a day early because the dough stays overnight in the refrigerator!
Put the butter and dark brown sugar in the mixer.
Mix both together until it is pale and fluffy.
Beat the half egg into the mixture until well combined.
Also whisk syrup and honey into the mixture.
Fetch a large bowl and stir the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, gingerbread spices and salt, together
Measure and weigh the flour and the other ingredients,*
Add 3 times 1/3 of the dry mixture to the butter mixture.
Mix it briefly until it transforms into a coarse dough.
Knead the dough by hand until smooth.
Wrap the dough in cling film.
Put the dough in the fridge overnight.
Day 2 today we bake the biscuits!
Line a baking tray with baking paper, set it aside for now
Knead the cold dough briefly.
Roll it to 1cm thickness.
Cut our Christmas figures.
We make various figures.
Preheat the oven to 175°C when the 30 minutes are almost gone
Place the tray in the middle of the oven, bake the biscuits for 10-12 minites.
Allow the biscuits to rest on the baking tray for 5 minutes.
Let the Lebkuchen cool completely on a wire rack.
First the biscuits will be tasted and that's fine, we have plenty!
Just a little break and then we're going to decorate the Lebkuchen beautifully!