Recipe: Lebkuchen Christmas decorations

Recipe: Lebkuchen Christmas decorations

80m prep | 15m cook

Last updated

European Christmas baking traditions might seem incompatible with the heat of an Australian summer, but there's something indisputably romantic about the smells of ginger, cinnamon, butter and sugar emanating from the oven.

These German biscuits are at the heart of a German Christmas, prepared annually according to personalised family recipes, decorated with care, and shared whenever guests visit on a 'bunter teller' ('colourful plate') piled high with biscuit of every shape, colour and flavour. 

We've kept our lebkuchen biscuits simple and hung them from our light-filled Christmas tree, but you're a slathering of icing, a few glace cherries or a scattering of almond slices away from creating your own personal family traditions. 

For best results, ensure you use the freshest spices possible for this recipe. Spices, like any other ingredient, have a shelf life, and flavours diminish significantly over the course of a year. 

View our spice range...

Ingredients (Serves 8-10)

  • 120g honey
  • 120g muscovado (or brown) sugar
  • 65g unsalted butter
  • 115g plain flour
  • 115g rye flour
  • 75g almond meal
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
  • 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  • 2 tsp cocoa powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 30g mixed peel, finely chopped
  • Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
  • 1 egg white, lightly beaten

       Warm the honey, sugar and butter in small saucepan over a low heat, stirring occasionally until melted and combined together. Set aside to cool. 

      Gather remaining ingredients (except the additional egg white) in a large bowl, add the honey mixture, and stir until it becomes a wet dough. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rest for half an hour; the wet mix will become dryer and more malleable as the almond meal absorbs the excess liquid. 

      Preheat oven to 180C. 

      Roll out the dough on a well-floured surface to roughly 3-4mm thickness, and use a cutter to create your desired biscuit shapes. Arrange on a a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving at least 5mm space around each biscuit. 

      Brush each biscuit lightly with egg white. If desired, decorate with halved glace cherries and/or silvered almonds. 

      Bake for 15 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough, re-rolling the offcuts as needed. 

      Remove from oven and leave to cool. Ice with a simple mix of icing sugar and lemon juice if desired.

      To turn the biscuits into decorations, use a skewer to create a hole for your twine as soon as they are cool enough to touch. Once they reach room temperature, the biscuits will harden (and then soften again a few days later). 

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