Lebkuchen

The Christmas tree stands in the room waiting for his (or her?) decoration. In the mean time we're waiting if our cat Puk is willing to stay off the tree. The smell of the tree and the cold outside brings me in the mood for Christmas. This is the time of the year I'm always looking forward to!

Besides the smell of the tree our house also smells after spicy cookies. To be more specific: lebkuchen. It takes some time to make the dough, but after that you must leave it one or up to 3 night in the fridge. And when you taste them.....................it's worth all the effort. When you use good quality product for these cookies you'll be rewarded by very spicy, soft and tender cookies.

Lebkuchen

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger


• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves


• 1/2 teaspoon mace


• 1 3/4 ounces blanched whole almonds, toasted


• 1 1/2 ounces blanced hazelnuts, toasted


• 1/3 cup diced candied orange peel


• 1/3 cup diced candied lemon peel


• 4 Medjool dates, pitted and finely chopped


• 3 ounces almond paste, broken into small pieces


• 1/3 cup apricot jam


• 3 large eggs


• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

For the glaze

• white chocolate
  

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, mace and cloves in a bowl. Chop the alomonds and hazelnuts very finely in the food processor. Add peels and dates and and pulse until finely chopped. Add almond past and apricot jam and pulse again to combine. Add eggs and brown sugar and pulse to combine. Add the dry ingredients and pulse again. Cover the mixture and refridgerate it overnigt or up to 3 days.

Preheat the oven to 325 dgr. F. (180 dgr. C.). Make with a medium sized ice cream scoop little balls onto a nonstick bakingmat. Keep some spcae between the cookies. Bake until golden brown in aboute 14 minutes and rotate the bakingmat halfway through. Let them cool down.

Melt the chocolate au bain marie and dip the cookies in it. Let it cool down and store the cookies in an airtight container. If you can control yourself!

(by Martha Stewart's Cookies)

This is my submission for Eat Christmas Cookies 2 . Visit the round up page to look at the cookies as they are posted.