Lebkuchen (or Pfefferkuchen, aka German gingerbread cookies)

This Sunday's recipe from Baked Occasions is a Christmas cookie originating from Germany, a kind of glazed gingerbread cookie known as lebkuchen. I have to confess that although the posting date is today, a rather warm (for SF) day in late August, I made these for Christmas last year, as part of the second round of 12 days of cookies I brought to work.

I've been wanting to make them again, since they were delicious, but the lebkuchen spice mix I made for these the first time is sitting in storage and I've been too lazy/stubborn to make it again. [Not because it was difficult, but just because I already "have" it.]

I bought the candied orange peel this recipe calls for from the Savory Spice Shop, at the outrageous expense of over $11 for 4 ounces (114 grams). This was slightly less than the amount called for in the recipe, but I didn't really want to spend another $11 to make up the difference, nor did I feel like making my own candied orange peel from the sad oranges in the NJ supermarkets in early December. Aside for this small shorting on my part, and the use of almond meal (from Trader Joe's) rather than freshly ground almonds, I followed the recipe as specified by Matt & Renato.

The cookie dough itself was easy to make, the only "time-consuming" steps in making these cookies were chopping the sticky orange peel and locating all the spices in my pantry, then grinding (some I had whole), measuring, and mixing them all together. Once the dough came together, I opted not to make it immediately, but rather let it sit in my refrigerator for 2.5 days (because I was pre-making a bunch of different cookie doughs on the weekend).

This dough was surprisingly easy to roll out. It warmed up quickly from the refrigerator but never got too sticky. I rolled it to 0.5" thick and was just barely able to get 24 cookies out of it by using a 2.5" diameter round cutter, not the 3" diameter cutter described in the recipe. My cookies took about 11.5-12 minutes of baking to be just dry to the touch.

While I was glazing these, I discovered that the full recipe for the chocolate glaze was insufficient and made another ½ batch of it. I actually could have used a little more but I just squeaked by with what I had. It seems bizarre that I made smaller cookies than described by the recipe yet needed more glaze, but that was my experience.

My coworkers had mixed reactions to these cookies. Most people liked them, but not in the same way that they gushed about other cookies I'd brought in. I really liked them, but I'm a pretty huge fan of ginger, gingerbread, chocolate, and candied orange peel dipped in chocolate, so these are kind of an ideal cookie for me. No single flavor dominates in these - they're a lovely, soft, lightly spiced cookie, with an interesting hint of citrus and a light coating of chocolate. Exactly what I want from the lebkuchen I buy every year from the grocery store, which are invariably a disappointment in their dry, flavorless, stale cookieness. One of the nicest compliments I received on these lebkuchen was from my Austrian co-worker, who told me they tasted exactly like the ones she'd grown up with and were even better than the ones her parents shipped her from Austria.

Gingerbread during the summer months seems like it's on the verge of becoming a trend, so don't wait for Christmas to make these 😉 Head over the Baked Sunday Mornings for the recipe and to see what my fellow bakers thought of these scrumptious Christmas lebkuchen.