Elisenlebkucken

It wouldn’t be Christmas without Lebkucken. Years living in Frankfurt fueled my addiction for these wonderful German spiced cookies. You can find a few varieties in the shops here in New Zealand but I decided to make a batch this year at our bakery to see if we could get the New Zealanders hooked too. We still have some in store if you are local and want to try them. And if they don’t all sell…I’ll just have to eat them all myself…oink oink

Ingredients

3 free range eggs
250g soft light brown sugar
250g ground hazelnuts (or a mix or ground hazelnuts and ground almonds)
•25g flaked almonds, crushed
100g candied peel, very finely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons lebkucken spice
pinch of salt

For the glaze:

100g icing sugar
2 tablespoons boiling water

100g melted dark chocolate (optional)

Pre heat oven at 150C.
In a bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar until thick and creamy.
Add the spices, ground hazelnuts, peel and combine.
Transfer mixture to a piping bag. Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Pipe 4cm rounds  onto the paper, leaving space in between each biscuit as they will spread slightly. Makes approx 15. Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool before glazing with icing mix. You can add a squiggle of chocolate as in the picture of leave them plain.

Normally lebkuchen are baked onto small wafers but since we do not have them here I bake them straight onto baking paper.