Lebkuchen made with the Thermomix® is not about the baking, it is about the waiting time beforehand. We always rest the dough for at least 24 hours in the fridge, and ideally three days. Only then does the honey fully penetrate the flour, and the lebkuchen spices build up the flavour that turns a lebkuchen into a proper lebkuchen.
We bake this basic recipe every year from the start of November, often several times. The first trays we try fresh from the oven, and the rest goes into tins with apple peel, getting better every day throughout the weeks of Advent. That is exactly what this recipe is for: a reliable base dough that mixes reliably in TM31, TM5 and TM6 and can be shaped any way you like, from Elisen-style rounds to thick lebkuchen bars.
Lebkuchen Basic Recipe with the Thermomix®
Ingredients 0 / 10 ✓
- 200 g almonds
- 200 g hazelnuts
- 180 g butter
- 150 g honey
- 250 g milk
- 3 eggs
- 150 g sugar
- 380 g plain flour (type 550)
- 1 sachet baking powder
- 1 sachet lebkuchen spice mix
Instructions 0 / 5
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1
Chop the almonds and nuts.
Add the almonds and hazelnuts to the mixing bowl and grind for 45 seconds / speed 7, then set aside.
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2
Melt the butter.
Cut the butter into pieces, add to the mixing bowl with the honey and melt for 5 minutes / 70°C / speed 2.
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3
Add the milk and eggs.
Add the milk and eggs and mix for 3 minutes / 37°C / speed 2.
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4
Mix all ingredients together.
Add the almonds and hazelnuts along with the remaining ingredients and mix for 1 minute / speed 5, using the spatula to assist.
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5
Bake the dough.
Shape the dough as desired and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C top and bottom heat. Baking time depends on the size and thickness of your lebkuchen.
Tip: You can prepare the dough in advance and store it in an airtight container in the fridge.
Video
Nutrition per serving
How honey, flour and spices become lebkuchen dough
The Thermomix® takes care of the hardest work. Lebkuchen dough is a mixture of warm honey, melted butter, eggs, milk, ground nuts and flour. Mixing that by hand means bending wooden spoons, honey pulling into strands, and flour clumping. In the mixing bowl it all happens in one go. 1 minute at speed 5 with the spatula is enough, the dough becomes homogeneous and nothing sticks to the sides.
We grind the nuts fresh, not from a bag. The 200 g of almonds and 200 g of hazelnuts go into the mixing bowl whole and are ground for 45 seconds at speed 7. The result is a coarse, slightly oily texture that gives the lebkuchen some bite. Shop-bought ground nuts are often too fine and have already lost aroma through long storage.
Honey and butter are pre-melted, not added cold. The 180 g of butter with 150 g of honey dissolve into a smooth syrup at 5 minutes / 70°C / speed 2. We then add the milk and eggs to this warm syrup at 3 minutes / 37°C / speed 2. The order matters: the syrup must be fluid enough that the flour does not clump, but just warm enough that the eggs do not scramble.
The resting time is the secret, not an optional step
Lebkuchen spice mix is a blend of at least six components: cinnamon, cloves, anise, cardamom, nutmeg and allspice, often with coriander, ginger or mace as well. These aromatic compounds are essential oils that dissolve in fat and honey. As soon as the dough is mixed, the aromas begin migrating from the dry spice sachet into the moist ingredients. Straight after mixing, the lebkuchen taste flat and floury. After 24 hours in the fridge the spices have worked their way through most of the honey. After 72 hours the flavour is round, Christmassy and deep.
We therefore almost always mix the dough in the evening, cover the bowl tightly with cling film and bake no earlier than the following afternoon. The dough must rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before working with it, otherwise it cannot be shaped properly. Straight from the fridge it is rock hard.
The right lebkuchen spice mix makes all the difference
A ready-made sachet works in a pinch, but we now mix our own spices. The typical blend for 30 g of mix looks roughly like this: 15 g cinnamon, 5 g ground anise, 3 g ground cloves, 3 g cardamom, 2 g nutmeg and 2 g allspice. Anyone who likes a more intensely spiced Christmas flavour can add 1 g of coriander seeds. The full instructions for making your own from whole spices in the Thermomix® can be found in our post on lebkuchen spice mix with the Thermomix®. The advantage over the sachet: a fresher burst of aroma, because the essential oils are only released when the spices are ground.
Where lebkuchen dough cracks or turns bitter
Dough becomes too firm and crumbly
Anyone who measures everything at room temperature and adds the flour directly without pre-warming the syrup will end up with lumpy dough. Cold flour and cold eggs are also a problem.
Our solution: Take the eggs and milk out of the fridge one hour before mixing. If needed, warm the flour for 10 seconds at speed 4 in the mixing bowl before adding the syrup. This keeps the temperature chain stable at around 37°C.
Lebkuchen turn hard as stone
A classic beginner’s mistake: baked too long or rolled too thin. Lebkuchen continue to firm up during storage anyway, so fresh from the oven they should still be slightly soft in the middle.
Our solution: Bake at 180°C top and bottom heat, about 12 minutes for one centimetre thickness. The top should just be starting to colour. Take one lebkuchen from each tray as a test piece and check. Place an apple peel in the tin directly after baking: the moisture from the apple transfers to the lebkuchen and they soften overnight.
Dough is too sticky to roll out
Lebkuchen dough has a high proportion of honey and butter. If it is worked while too warm, it sticks to the work surface, rolling pin and fingers.
Our solution: Roll the dough out between two sheets of baking paper. If it still sticks, return it to the fridge for 20 minutes until it is cool enough again. Flour on the work surface helps only briefly and makes the lebkuchen drier.
With chocolate, marzipan or as Elisen-style lebkuchen
Chocolate lebkuchen: Finely chop 80 g of dark chocolate and fold in during the final mixing step at speed 5. We use chocolate with at least 60% cocoa content so it does not become too sweet.
Orange lebkuchen: Add the grated zest of one organic orange during the step with the milk and eggs, along with 20 g extra honey. For a more intense flavour, replace 50 g of the milk with fresh orange juice.
Elisen variation: Reduce the flour to 200 g and increase the almond and hazelnut mixture to 300 g of each. This produces a finer, higher-quality lebkuchen that is spread onto wafers and baked. Shorten the baking time slightly as the dough binds less flour.
Macadamia and white chocolate: Replace the hazelnuts with macadamia nuts and fold in 80 g of white chocolate chips. This is a more modern variation that works without lebkuchen spice mix if you prefer to skip the classic character.
Icing, chocolate couverture or a cup of tea alongside
Anyone who wants to take the finished baked lebkuchen a step further can crumble a few of them and use them as lebkuchen rusks for Tiramisu or trifle. A classic Christmas biscuit platter for us also includes all kinds of biscuits, and anyone looking for a quick shortcrust pastry as the base for other Christmas biscuits will find what they need in our shortcrust pastry collection. From the same lebkuchen spice mix you can also make a lebkuchen liqueur, which makes a lovely gift in the run-up to Christmas.
Stays soft for 4 weeks in a tin with an apple wedge
Raw dough: Wrapped in cling film, it keeps for 3 to 5 days in the fridge and up to one month in the freezer. Defrost overnight in the fridge before use and leave to come to room temperature for 30 minutes.
Baked lebkuchen: An airtight tin with an apple peel, stored in a cool, dark place. They keep easily for two weeks, often longer. Frozen in freezer bags for up to three months. Defrost overnight at room temperature, then warm through for 5 minutes at 100°C in the oven to soften them again.
Goes well with: Mulled wine and hot chocolate.
What does not work: Leaving lebkuchen uncovered. They dry out within two days and become crumbly. The fridge is also bad for baked lebkuchen: they absorb moisture there, go clammy and lose their characteristic aroma.
Anyone inspired by this basic recipe to do more Christmas baking will find that our biscuit collection, the shortcrust pastry recipes and the matching lebkuchen spice mix with the Thermomix® work well together.
