Ingredients
Serves 4-6Lebkuchen
⅔ cup sugar225g butter, softened
1 egg
½ teaspoon salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
½ tsp allspice
¼ tsp ground cloves
2 tsp vanilla
2¼ cups plain flour
¼ cup (approx) raspberry jam (or use your favourite jam)
Basic Vanilla Biscuits
200g unsalted butter, softened200g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
400g plain flour
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
Royal Icing
2 large egg whites2 tsp fresh lemon juice
3 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
Method
Lebkuchen
Preheat oven to 200°C.
In a large mixer bowl combine the sugar, butter, egg, salt, spices, and vanilla.
Beat at a medium speed, scraping bowl often, until mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Add flour. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often, until well mixed, about 2 to 3 minutes.
If dough is too soft, cover and refrigerate until firm enough to cut into shapes.
Roll dough out to about 8mm thick. Cut into shapes. Using the back of a wooden spoon, press a hole into the middle of each biscuit; taking care not to go all the way through to the other side. Fill these with raspberry jam. Chill biscuits for about 30 minutes.
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. When cool decorate biscuits as desired.
Basic Vanilla Biscuits
Preheat oven to 200°C.
Cream the butter, vanilla and sugar until just creamy. Beat in the egg and when well combined, add the flour and beat on low speed until a dough forms. Form into a ball and chill for about an hour.
Roll dough out to about 5mm thickness and cut into desired shapes. Chill biscuits for about 30 minutes.
Bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on size or until edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. When cool decorate biscuits as desired.
This mixture can be used as a starting point for many flavours of biscuits. You can add lemon or orange zest, ground ginger or cocoa (replace 50g of flour with 50g of ginger or cocoa)
Royal Icing
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites with the lemon juice. Add the sifted icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth.
The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with glad wrap when not in use.
Royal icing can be thinned with water to required consistency and coloured with food colouring as required. You can pipe outlines and then thin the icing down in order to flood or colour the centres of the outlines.