Get ready this Christmas with our Christmas Cookies Recipe: Spiced Lebkuchen, served with Newby Teas Upper Assam Tea. As the festive season draws near, we have curated a collection of essential recipes to elevate your Christmas Day experience. These culinary delights, both opulent and indulgent, have been carefully selected for you to enjoy. We have sought the expertise of esteemed chefs, renowned platforms, and passionate food enthusiasts to provide you with foolproof recipes and invaluable guidance, ensuring that your holiday is nothing short of extraordinary. Furthermore, we will offer you some suggestions on how to savour these recipes alongside a delightful cup of tea. This magnificent offering, courtesy of Delicious Magazine, presents a timeless recipe for classic spiced lebkuchen. Originating from Germany and cherished by none other than Queen Victoria herself, the iced biscuits, infused with seasonal spices, are sure to captivate your taste buds.

Ingredients

For the biscuits 

• 90g unsalted butter
• 70ml clear honey
• 100ml black treacle
• 30g dark muscovado sugar
• Finely grated zest 1 lemon & 1 orange
• 250g self-raising flour, plus extra
  
  

For the powder

• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• Pinch ground cloves
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch fine sea salt
• 60g ground almonds
• 1 free-range egg yolk
  
  

For the icing

• 150g icing sugar
• Juice 1 lemon

Cooking Instructions 

1. 1. Heat the oven to 180C /160C fan/gas 4. 
   
   
2. 2. In a large saucepan, melt together the butter, honey, treacle, sugar and both citrus zests over a medium heat. 
   
   
3. 3. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes. 
   
   
4. 4. While the mixture is still warm, sift in the flour, cocoa powder, ground spices, bicarb of soda and salt. 
   
   
5. 5. Stir in the ground almonds and add the egg yolk, then mix together to form a dough. 
   
   

1. 6. Gently knead until smooth – it should be warm, very soft and slightly greasy.
   
   
2. 7. Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the dough until about 1 cm thick. It will be soft and sticky, but you don’t need to be gentle with it as it’s a robust dough. 
   
   
3. 8. Using your cutters, stamp out as many biscuits as you can, lifting them onto the prepared baking sheets with a palette knife. 
   
   

1. 9. Re-roll the dough remnants and continue stamping out until you have about 35 biscuits. 
   
   
2. 10 Bake for 10-12 minutes – the biscuits will still be quite soft when you take them out of the oven. 
   
   
3. 11. Leave to firm up on the trays for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 
   
   
4. 12. Mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice to make a quite runny icing (you may need to add a splash of water if your lemon isn’t juicy). 
   
   

1. 13. Dip the biscuits face-down in the icing (or just draw the icing over the top).
   
   
2. 14 leave, icing-side up, to set on a wire rack. 
   
   

Serving Suggestion: Upper Assam tea

To ensure a satisfying Christmas tea time experience enjoy the lebkuchen biscuits with a cup of Upper Assam tea. Make sure you give it a few minutes to steep Assam tea to a rich malty flavour. The rich flavours of black tea will certainly comfort your senses on a cold Christmas evening. 

Nutritional Information 

Calories: 95 kcals, Fat: 3.5g (1.6g Saturated), Protein: 1.4g, Carbohydrates: 14.2g (8.6g sugars), Fibre: 0.5g, Salt: 0.1g

Kitchen Appliances 

1.  Oven
2. Large saucepan
3. Sifter
4. Mixing bowl
5. Work surface 
6. Baking sheets lined with non-stick baking paper
7. Palette knife
8. Wire rack
9. Mixing spoon or whisk
10. Star-shaped cutters
    
    

Cooking tips

Make the dough up to 48 hours ahead and keep chilled, covered. Freeze the dough or the baked biscuits (un-iced) for up to 1 month.