Lebkuchen

Chocolate-dipped, crunchy-chewy domes of Christmas spice.

It's that time of year again! It's nearly Christmas, hooray! For a long time now it's been a tradition of mine to have a 'fake' Christmas day - the works: get up early, presents, a tree, the dinner, lots of films, cheese, mulled wine and falling asleep on the sofa at the appropriate time of 8.30 pm. This year I found my self in Berlin and so though that I would give all my lovely ladies a fake Christmas day. A table filled with nibbles in the day and a roast for eleven at night...
So I had the task of thinking of some lovely baked goods - lebkuchen, of course! Lovely gingery spiced biscuit-cakes that pop up everywhere at Cristmastime in Germany and date back as far as the 1200s. They are sweetened naturally with a lot of honey, so take care they don't catch in the oven. These are very, very easy to make. These taste better the longer you can leave the dough to rest. 4 hours is ok, but if you have the time, make the mixture the day before you want to eat them!
This recipe is adapted from goodfood.co.uk

Ingredients:

250g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
90g ground almonds
1 tsp lebkuchen spice mix (cinnamon, coriander, pepper, anis, ginger)
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
200ml honey
80g butter
zest of a lemon and an orange

100g dark chocolate

Method:
- sift the dry ingredients in to a large bowl.
- heat the honey and butter together until the butter melts and allow to cool slightly.
- Pour the molten honey on to the four, add the zest and beat well using a wooden spoon until combined. Cover with clingfilm and allow to rest. The dough will be very sticky and wet, but will firm up as it cools.

ready to bake!

- preheat the oven to gas mark 3/ 160C and line a large baking sheet with paper.
- Plonk the dough on to a lightly floured board and knead for a few seconds. Divide in to 30 equal portions (I went a bit overboard to ensure even sized treats. This recipe will make 30 21g biscuits!). Roll in to small balls and then lightly flatten so they have domed tops. Place on the sheet and bake in two batches for 10-12 minutes,
- cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and dip the bottoms in. Leave to set upside down.
- boil the kettle, stick on the Muppet Christmas Carol and enjoy.