These are usually found in the shops in Germany at Christmas time, although my family happily eats them all year round. They're a sort of spiced honey cookie. Sometimes they're baked on rice paper. They're usually round biscuits, but this is a quicker tray bake version.
150g candied lemon peel
150g hazelnuts
150g soft butter, in pieces
250g milk
2 tbsp honey
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
3 tsp lebkuchen spice mix *
270g sugar
350g flour
2 tsp baking powder (the original recipe says 3 quarters of a packet, as it's sold in little packets in Germany. As I remember, a packet was the equivalent of 2.5 tsp)
* Lebkuchen spice mix: this can be difficult to find outside of Germany. The mix consists of cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, coriander, cardamom, ginger and mace. Looking at various recipes, the quantities in a mix might typically be
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Allspice; Ground
¼ teaspoon Cloves; Ground
1 tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp coriander
¼ tsp cardamom
1 tsp ginger
¼ tsp mace
This, of course, rather unhelpfully makes 5 tsp, when the recipe calls for 4. But I guess we could scale it up and keep it in a jar.
1. Put the lemon peel and nuts in the tm bowl and grind 25 secs / turbo
2. Add the butter, milk, honey, eggs, vanilla sugar, spices and sugar. Mix 1 min / speed 5
3. Add the flour and baking powder and mix for ca 15 secs / speed 5, using the spatula.
4. Put the batter into a well greased baking tray and bake for 20 mins in an oven preheated to 200oC
Variations: Instead of lemon peel, use orange peel. Try drizzling chocolate over the lebkuchen once they're baked - delicious.
Translated from German thermomix club booklet, special issue 2001.
