Lebkuchen

It's getting near Christmas, and what would Christmas be without Lebkuchen? Time to get baking! This recipe is largely based on this one, but with a few minor tweaks here and there (chiefly, I've replaced the cardamom with nutmeg and also made a few other changes to make the ingredients easier to obtain in the UK).

Lebkuchen
Ingredients

• 4 Eggs
• 200g Sugar
• 1tsp Vanilla extract
• 1tsp Lemon juice
  
• 1 1/2tsp Cinnamon
• 1tsp Cloves
• 1tsp Allspice
• 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
• 200g Ground almonds
• 125g Mixed peel
• 250g Plain flour
• 2tsp Baking powder

Method

1. Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract together.
2. Add all the remaining ingredients, combining to form a dough.
3. Shape into portions roughly 10mm thick and bake at ~180C for 15-20 mins.
4. Allow to cool. Cover with melted chocolate, icing or icing sugar if desired.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, as it turns out, it is mostly - the hardest part is shaping the dough into biscuits for baking, as it's so sticky. Here's the dough.
After a bit of struggling with the stickiness, eventually it looks like this when ready for the oven. I was expecting them to merge into one giant Lebkuchen.And straight from the oven. They didn't spread out very much in the end!I iced some of them with a plain icing. I think they look pretty good overall!