Lebkuchen – German Christmas Cookies
81 comments » 
Back at the beginning of the week I put up a poll about holiday baking, asking what types of recipes you all would like to see featured here on Brown Eyed Baker leading up to the holiday season. (If you haven’t thrown in your two cents yet, head on over and vote!) In the comments section, Heather of Squirrel Bread asked about Lebkuchen and said that she had a couple of recipes but had yet to make them. I emailed her and told her I hadn’t heard of them but would do some research and plan on making them. Less than a day later I was browsing through some of my cookbooks just looking for ideas and inspiration and wouldn’t you know, I ran across a recipe for Lebkuchen. I considered it fate and set out to make a batch right then and there. I did some reading and research and looked at other recipes and came up with this gem.
Lebkuchen is a traditional German cookie that is usually baked for Christmas. It is most like a soft gingerbread cookie, made with molasses and full of warm spices. The glaze provides the perfect complement, a little sweet and with a hint of lemon. All of the flavors blend together so nicely and taste like the holidays; one bite and you will want to crank up the holiday music and trim the tree. You could roll these a little thinner and use cookie cutters to cut out shapes and decorate them. No matter how you make them, you will be glad you did!
Lebkuchen
Yield: 18 cookies
Prep Time: 15 minutes (active) 2 hours (inactive)
Cook Time: 10-12 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
Ingredients:
For the Cookies:
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
1¼ teaspoons ground nutmeg
1¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1 egg
¾ cup light brown sugar
½ cup honey
½ cup molassesFor the Glaze:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 Tablespoons water
1 Tablespoon lemon juiceDirections:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease two baking sheets or line them with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Set aside.
3. Beat the egg and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl.
4. Beat in the honey and molasses until thoroughly combined.
5. On low speed, stir in the flour mixture until just combined.
6. Turn the dough out from the bowl onto a well-floured surface. Knead the dough, adding more flour as kneaded, until a stiff dough is formed.
7. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.
8. On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough into a 9x12-inch rectangle. Cut the dough into 18 3x2-inch rectangles. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
9. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool. Whisk together the confectioner's sugar, water and lemon juice and brush or spread on top of the cookies.
10. Allow the glaze to firm, and then store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.
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Love you photography. The white surface that you put the cookies on, is that a shiny white plate? or did you use mirror like reflecting plate?
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catherine on July 14th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Love your site, its energetic and enthusiastic as well as yummy. However…as a journalist, I’m surprised that you didn’t credit the cookbook/cook who wrote the recipe. Just noticed this on the Lebkuchen cookie site. Maybe I missed it. If so, my apologies.
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“auch du lieber”… or at least that’s what I’m imagining my mother to say about this recipe. Thanks for bringing back some childhood memories. I can almost smell them.
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Gabbi on December 23rd, 2012 at 10:58 pm
I like to call these stank cookies.. They came out horrible & I hated them
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Sven on May 16th, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Well maybe that’s because you’re a bad cook.
or, you just messed up the recipe.
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Absolutely delicious !! I agree : we can almost smell them!!
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Wow, never heard of them before, but they sounds really delicious.
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These look so yummy and would be wonderful for the holidays! I bet they smelled wonderful as they baked.
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you baked them! i remember walking around Munich… the street vendors’ stalls hung with heart-shaped Lebkuchen covered in bright colored icing. thank you for working on that for me. it’s like a pre-Christmas post-gift! they look terrific.
cheers,
*heather*
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This sounds great!
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Hi Neel – I just used a shiny white plate to photograph the cookies.
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Lebkuchen are also cookies baked in Alsace (North Eastern France) before Christmas
I love them!!
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A cookie without butter? I must try that!
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I’m not a huge fan of lebkuchen, but these look really good! I like that they are flatter.
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Looks very tasty – I have made german cookies once before and they were to die for!
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My Oma used to make these, and I think I will be making them again for Christmas! Thank you for the recipe!
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My Dad told me he would eat these as a kid, so last year I attempted to make them for Christmas. However, they turned out rock hard! I was scared for my teeth when I bit in. I did some research and found that they were often left in airtight containers with orange slices to soften them up (though this didn’t work for me either). I don’t know if you have any advice to offer – did yours come out of the oven nice and soft already? I’d love to try them again this year.
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Patty Deffenbaugh Karber on January 4th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
My Tante told me they made these at the first of December so they could hang them on the tree. Hers were usually Star shaped and hard as a rock.
We loved them anyway. She would always send me hunting for oplate? too put under her maccaroons and the lebkuchen she would make. I’d like to carry on a family tradition but she stored so many recipies in her head. Her cakes were wonderful.
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Mary-Catherine on November 15th, 2011 at 11:58 am
The wafers you put the cookies on are called oblaten. They are thin, paperlike, and tasteless, and prevent the cookies from burning on your baking sheet. This way you don’t have to grease the baking sheet first. These are used often in german cookie recipes.
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Mary-Catherine on November 15th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Try leaving apple slices in airtight containers instead. This will soften them up!
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I love your shot of all the spices! These look amazing, I should make them for my Dad!
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these sound really good. I like the glaze thats put over them
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This reminds me of my childhood and My papa used to bring them from Basel for Christmas…thank you so much!
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oo these sound delicious with all those spices!
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I love these cookies. Lucky me, I have a friend living in Germany who mails me some every year!! Yours look divine.
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jen erceg on September 21st, 2011 at 1:46 am
BethieofVA I have been trying hard to find a way to have their festive tins sent to australia. Schmidt will send them for $277 dollars postage… way too much. However the tin does weigh five kilos when packed.
If your german friend or yourself could give me any tips i would appreciate it.
with thanks Jen from Perth Aust.
If you can give me any clues as to
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ohhh, these might be on my christmas cooking baking list! Thank you so much
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I attempted to make them last year… not really succeeded. Yours look beautiful!
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I have never made these cookies but know of them as my family is of German descent. My new years resolution that started last week is to learn about and make (and of course blog) about real German food. This is one of the better recipes I’ve seen for lebkuchen. Usually when I try to buy them they are hard and I don’t care for them. I am saving this recipe and making for Christmas this year.
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I love your photos! Always highlight every single detail bit!
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These cookies look great, and I love the picture of the spices. I can smell them from here!
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Many years ago I worked for a German family (in Australia) & was lucky enough to join them in their Christmas celebrations. Seeing your Lebkuchen took me back to that time. Simply gorgeous cookies & photography.
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I haven’t tried these but love the spices. Very Christmas-y
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These look & sound delicious! I usually buy a few packages of Lebkuchen at Trader Joe’s as my son loves them. But you have inspired me to bake some myself this year! Thanks for experimenting & sharing!
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Lovely — I’ve seen this traditional recipe in cookie books and have always been curious to try it!
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Wow those look amazing (both the recipe and your photographs). I’ve gotta try these.
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I make a version of these cookies every year, however I don’t use any molasses and I replace some of the flour with ground almonds. I also heat the honey – then add the brown sugar. When they come out of the oven I brush both sides with a thin icing. They are chewy and delicious – my whole family and neighbourhood are fans. I make them early in the season and keep them in a sealed container till around Christmas. My recipe comes the closest to the cookies I had in Germany as a child.
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I’ve just bumped them to the top of my bake for xmas list, thank you!
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these are one of my moms favorites, from germany and she hasnt been able to find good ones in the US so i will have to make these for her~ thanks!
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Wow. delicious recipe. I like your foto..
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I will try this and the true test will be when my husband’s Oma (age 94) will taste them. She is now in a nursing home and she could not make them last year, either. So, I hope this will be a nice Xmas present/ surprise for her.
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About their hardness…when my grandparents were still alive, they sent us lebkuchen and other cookies from Germany every Christmas, and I remember that the lebkuchen would get softer over time. You couldn’t eat them right away. So don’t give up hope, Carolyn! I haven’t tried this recipe yet – it’ll be a first for me for lebkuchen – but I’m really excited to see how it goes!
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I make our family’s version of these every year. The Hebron ND cookbook has 8 different recipes for lebkuchen. All have butter and honey boiled first, then flour added along with eggs spices and ground citron and nuts. They are topped with a split almond and brushed with egg yolk wash before being baked. Wonderful!
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O.k., I did it! I made them! I think I didn’t put in enough of the liquid sugars, and so when it came time to knead the dough, I just had a bowl full of powder. So I added two more eggs, which I think made them a little rubbery. But they’re still delicious. They don’t look *anything* like in your photo, but hey, it’s my first time, afterall…
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Nice recipe and yumy cookies, but the preheating and cookie sheet prep instructions shouldn’t be at the beginning if the dough has to be refrigerated! Put these instructions in the middle instead.
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My grandmother made Lebkuchen, though not from the same recipe. The comments on the cookie’s hardness made me smile. Grandma always made them several months in advance and stored them in tins or an old ceramic crock until the holidays. They’re so much better after they mellow for a few months, or a year.
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So I was really excited about these, and i followed your recipe exactly. They turned out rock hard and rather gross.
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I just made these for my husband to try. The smell amazing while baking, they are a hard crunchy cookie but have a great flavor. Always fun a s a baker to try new recipes thanks
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My grandparents on both sides were German, and they, like my mother, made Lebkuchen cookies for Christmas. Their receipe calls for molasses, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, Anise oil, and Citron and candied fruit. The cookies were never soft and chewy and I can remember years when they were so hard that you had to soak them in milk to eat them. They were also brushed with honey, not frosted, and decorated with an almond sliver.
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I LOVE lebkuchen !! I would always beg my mother to make several batches early in the holiday period so we’d have them til after New Year’s (ya right , haha ). After she made them , we’d store them in tins and hide them in the bottom of the china cabinet until holiday company came over and then we’d retrieve them . Several times , we missed a tin or two tucked way in the back and didn’t find them until the following year and guess what ??? they were even better ! They were a little hard , but absolutely perfect for coffee/tea dunking. Thanks for the memories and now I’ll have to try my hand at making them .
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your cookies look yummy i cooked them and my german teacher said they tasted just like the ones he had in germany
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I made these as a child with my grandmother a recipe her mother had brought from Germany. I made this recipe today and the whole time I was putting the dry ingredients together I was thinking something had been left out. I baked the cookies and found them to be a little hard and came to believe the missing ingredient is baking soda. Will follow grandmothers recipe next time since I have found it.
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The recipe I was looking for had citron in it and a thin chocolate glaze…can you help?
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I made these last year and they turned out great. I personally don’t have a taste for them, but my husband said they were better than his mother’s attempt at them and that’s saying something! My lebkuchen turned out soft, so maybe those of you who have tough cookies are rolling them out too thinly or are putting in too much flour while kneading.
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There was a German bakery in my town when I was a child. Year round they sold a cookie that had a molasses flavor, it was chewy, not to sweet, it had some small amount of candied fruit, some nuts and a glaze. It looked like they baked it in a long rectangle the width of a single cookie then they cut it into individual cookies after it was baked.
I have looked for a recipe, I have tried many, none come close to what I remember.
Do you have any idea what cookie it might be?
Thanks!
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Michelle on December 14th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Hi Angie, I haven’t heard of this type of cookie and did some Googling but haven’t had much luck. I’ll keep looking and let you know if I find anything!
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Zina on November 28th, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Try Leckerli – that maybe what Angle Moore was thinking about. The recipe I have has lots of spice and dried fruit.
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I have my grandmothers recipe and none of them I’ve seen online are close to her’s. She was first generation in the US so her recipe had to of come over from Germany with her mother. She was born in 1895 so mine has to be at least a 130 year old recipe. Many things are differen. Three big ones are grandma’s does not contain brown sugar, molasses or honey. Alone with different ingredians one of the most important parts of grandma’s recipe was that once they were cut out they dried over night on the ironing board.
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Me and my 4 year old are about to make these cookies. They do bring back childhood memories but my mother always bought them from the German deli. I’m looking forward to trying the homemade version.
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My family has made Lebkuchen for years! Though our recipe is a little different, I’m SO happy to see you sharing the recipe and giving this great cookie some love!
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Hello! Usually we use grounded nuts and sugar beet molasses for Lebkuchen. Also we sometimes use potash, candied lemon and orange peel (“Zitronat, Orangeat”). That´s what makes it very traditional. I suggest to try it, it´s so yummy! I love candle light and the smell of winter baking all over my house, when it´s really uncomfortable outside. Oh du fröhliche…
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Mine came out very hard….don’t know why. I noticed that I needed to bake them for a longer time because they didn’t look like they were baked through when the timer went off at ten minutes. I Was very disappointed with this recipe. Thought the flavor was rather bland too. I was expecting a more chewy cookie not hard.
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Thank you for posting this. I have old recipe books that I used to make them, but alas over the years they have been falling apart. Being raised in Germany, these cookies are a tradition for me and my new family. I thought that I would have to miss out on them this year, but thanks to you, it will be a wonderful season to remember.
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Michelle on December 15th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Hi Tammylou, I hope you and your family enjoy these!
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Not sure what went wrong. We followed the recipe exactly. They are rock hard! We made these last night to gift to coworkers this morning and they are so hard, I didn’t want to risk breaking someone’s tooth! The flavor is fine, but what went wrong??
Pictures are great though.
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Michelle on December 20th, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Hi Maria, It sounds like either too much flour was used when rolling it out, or that the cookies were overbaked.
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I have just finished my second lot of your cookies. The first batch I did a few weeks ago to test run for the Christmas, and like Maria they just about broke my tooth. A couple of days later though they softened up a little and they all got eaten.
Today I didn’t cook them for as long and they are perfect.
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Maria on December 21st, 2012 at 10:24 am
Thanks Michelle and Merilyn for the comments. We put them in an airtight container and will see if they are softer today. We also have another dough batch in the fridge and will try tweaking things before we bake it. Many of the cookies were still raw on the inside when I baked them for the prescribed amount of time, but maybe they weren’t rolled out thin enough.
Will give it another try though, since the flavor was great!
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Why is the recipe lacking baking soda? They taste great but were inedible due to the consistency.
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Michelle on February 19th, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Ron, There are actually a number of different Lebkuchen recipes; some of them include a leavening agent, while others do not. It sounds like you either rolled the dough too thin or over baked them, as they are definitely a thick and chewy cookie.
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These were called ‘lepe’ cookies in my family. I’m including the recipe as it came from my great grandmother, an emigrant from Ettenheimweiler, Baden, Germany:
6 pounds sorghum
3 – 3 oz pkg. citron, diced
1 pound raisins, cut up
3 – 7 oz pkg. currants
½ pound English walnut meats – finely ground
½ pound pecan meats – finely ground
3 Tbsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp cloves
1 Tbsp nutmeg
1-pound lard, softened
1-pound butter, softened
1-pint buttermilk
3 Tbsp fresh baking soda
21 cups flour
Mix the 1st 11ingredients in the order listed.
Then add, alternating, the buttermilk and baking soda mixture and the flour cup by cup.
Chill overnight.
The next day, using a softball sized amount of dough, roll into a rectangle on a floured surface, about 1/4″ thick and approximately 12″ x 18″ in shape. With a sharp knife, cut into bars about 2″ x 3″.
Cook on ungreased baking sheet at 350 degrees 10-12 minutes.
Cook cookies overnight.
The following day, ice with the following:
1 pound powdered sugar
1 stick melted butter
enough half and half cream to make spreading consistency.
Ice the flat bottom of the cookie and let dry.
You will need more than one batch of the icing.
When icing is dry, store in air tight stone crocks for several weeks.
This recipe makes hundreds of cookies. You can cut the recipe in 1/3 with good results.
We made the cookies the first week of December so they would be properly aged by Christmas. The cookies freeze very well.
From my research, different areas of Germany had slightly different recipes. And some places made these cookies as tree decorations.
Nothing says Christmas cookie to me like lepe cookie does.
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