Baking Lebkuchen from Scratch: Easier Than I Expected?
17th December 2025 - New Experience Number 38.
In an attempt to fully embrace the festive season, I decided to try baking lebkuchen from scratch for the very first time.
After finding what looked like a fairly straightforward recipe, I convinced myself these traditional German treats wouldn’t be too difficult to make. I was slightly wrong.
In this post, I’m sharing a little more about the history of lebkuchen, the recipe I followed, how my first attempt turned out, and a few things I’d do differently next time.
What is Lebkuchen?
Firstly, how do you even say the name? My attempts in the past have been questionable, however from a bit of online research, it seems that the correct way to pronounce it is layb-koo-hen.
Lebkuchen are a traditional German gingerbread-style biscuit that are especially popular during Christmas.
These bite-sized nibbles can be a bit divisive – are they cakes or are they biscuits? Are they sweet or are they spicy?
Well, they’re a sort of gingerbread, which equally can be described as a biscuit or a cake depending on how it is made, and they contain sweet honey and dried spices. All I know is that I think they are delicious, and I’ve just tried baking them for the first time so I’m not going to attempt to clear it up here.
Where Does Lebkuchen Come From?
Lebkuchen are traditionally baked with honey, and we have German monks to thank for bringing Lebkuchen to our tables. However, the roots of baking cakes with honey can be traced back to the Egyptians who believed that sweet honey was a gift from the Gods.
Way back in 1296, there is a record of Lebkuchen bakers in the South German city of Ulm. Later in 1395, Nuremberg became a hot spot for the creation of the spiced honey cakes due to it being a hub of trade for the spice routes from The East, and its proximity to a rich supply of locally sourced honey.
Following an endorsement from Emperor Frederick III, and the Lebkuchen bakers of Nuremberg being given their own trade guild, Lebkuchen became something the region could be proud of.
Today, Nuremberg is considered the capital of Lebkuchen, and they are protected by geographical indication status under European law. Each year, around 70 million are produced which are enjoyed by people all around the world.
Finding a Recipe For Baking Lebkuchen From Scratch
If you’ve been following along with any of the other new recipes I’ve tried as part of my challenge to try fifty-two new things a year, you might not be surprised to read that I found a recipe on BBC Good Food.
They’re not paying me to say this, and this is in no way sponsored by them, but I really rate BBC Good Food for recipes. The instructions are easy to follow, and I hugely value the picture they include which gives me some indication of what the end result should look like.
If you’re looking for a homemade lebkuchen recipe to try for the first time, there are loads available online so take a look through a few until you find one that suits you.
Ingredients For Lebkuchen
The recipe didn’t need too many ingredients, and I had most of them in the cupboard already from previous bakes.
- Runny honey
- Butter
- Plain flour
- Ground almonds
- Baking powder
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Cinnamon
- Ground ginger
- Mixed spice
- Nutmeg
- Orange
- Icing sugar
It was only as I came to weigh everything out to make the lebkuchen that I realised I didn’t have any bicarbonate of soda.
Looking online I discovered that a possible substitute involved using more baking powder so I decided to give it a go.
Baking Lebkuchen For The First Time
The first step was making the dough which involved melting the honey and butter together, leaving them to cool and then mixing it with all of the other ingredients.
Once everything was combined into a sticky dough, I rolled it out on the worktop which I’d sprinkled with flour, to an even thickness of roughly 2.5cm.
It was at this point that I realised I only own one cookie cutter so they would all have to be heart shapes. Although in hindsight I realise I could quite easily have just made traditional round shapes which would have looked perfectly fine.
Once I’d used up all of the dough, and carefully placed my cut creations onto the lined baking trays, I popped them into the oven for fifteen minutes.
Out Of The Oven
They were a long fifteen minutes. The warming sweetly spiced smells that drifted through the kitchen were the perfect aromas of Christmas. I eagerly peered through the glass door to check on progress. Things were looking good.
The timer went off and I was already prepared with my hands in my oven gloves. The delicious wave of scented heat hit me as I opened the door.
Trying To Cover Up The Cracks
Whilst the aroma met my expectations, the appearance wasn’t quite what I had anticipated.
I thought these would look like smooth little biscuity cakes, but they came out looking like the cracked planes of an arid desert.
Rather than uniform neat nibbles, some of the hearts had expanded into less recognisable blobs, some were browner around the edges than others, and all of them had a cracked surface.
Applying A Sugar Glaze
Whilst I couldn’t do much about the shape of them at this point, I still had a sugar glaze to apply which I hoped would help to make them more presentable.
Making the glaze was a simple case of mixing icing sugar with water. But it turns out I didn’t mix them together all that well. I dunked some of the cakes into the bowl to coat them, whilst I spooned the mixture onto the top of others.
Either method worked quite well, but I clearly hadn’t stirred the icing sugar enough as there were still some lumps in the otherwise smooth consistency.
I think a heavier icing would have helped to cover up my mistakes rather than the glaze. The icing seemed quite thin and slid across the lebkuchen, leaving me with some insipid and transparent coverings.
The Taste Test
Whilst my lebkuchen smelt like the real thing, even if they looked very uneven, the most important part of the bake was the taste test.
The flavours were delicious, and as good as any others I’ve tried. A generous blend of sweetness combined with a perfect balance of savoury spices. They were very tasty.
However, whenever I’ve tried proper lebkuchen they’ve been quite airy and light. Well, these little morsels were dense. They were chewy and heavy, which on the plus side meant it wasn’t as easy to eat many of them in one go.
Things I’d Do Differently Next Time
Ok, so my first attempt at making the traditional German Christmas biscuits left plenty of room for improvement, so here are some of the things I’ll be doing differently next time.
- Use proper bicarbonate of soda rather than make do with a substitute.
- Try rolling the dough a little thinner.
- Mix a slightly thicker consistency of sugar glaze, and make sure the icing sugar has completely dissolved.
- Try making a chocolate icing instead of the sugar glaze.
- Not worry about the cookie cutter, and make some simple round shapes instead.
- Embrace the home-made appearance – after all, they don’t have to look perfect to taste delicious.
The Result of Baking Lebkuchen From Scratch
Baking Lebkuchen from scratch had looked like a relatively easy new thing to try, but the reality was that my first attempt left me with plenty of room for improvement.
Whilst I definitely won’t be applying to appear on Bake Off any time soon, I am going to try making these again.
I love how humbling it can be when something seems easy, but the actual result turns out slightly chaotically. That’s one of the reasons I started my challenge to try 52 new things in a year in the first place.
Not everything has to be perfected the first time around — sometimes the fun is simply in giving it a go, learning from the mistakes, and it’s a bonus ending up with something delicious along the way.
Want To Try It Yourself?
- To try the same recipe that I used, click here to visit the BBC Good Food site.
- There are lots of recipes available on line, so why not have a look at a few and find one that you’d like to follow.
Cost Of Experience
- The cost of making lebkuchen will depend on where you shop. If you needed to buy all of the ingredients from scratch, it would cost around £14.16 to make this batch of 18, however you will have plenty of most of the ingredients left to use in other baking.
Recommendations For Baking Lebkuchen For The First Time
- Don’t overthink it. If your biscuits aren’t looking like they do in the picture, don’t worry, keep going, they’ll just look uniquely homemade.
- Check you’ve got all of the ingredients. Before you begin baking, make sure you have enough of all of the ingredients to save having to make dubious substitutes like I did.
- Line your baking trays. This will make it much easier for taking your lebkuchen off the trays for cooling.
- Get creative. You don’t have to follow the instructions exactly, and you could get experimental with your icing!
- Don’t forget to take some pictures. Enjoy the process, and capture the finished cakes!