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Dessert

German Lebkuchen

A sweet spiced dough cookie made with brown sugar, eggs, spices, nuts, and dried citron, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Lebkuchen

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Mix brown sugar and eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Add grated nutmeg, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, mace, almonds, and citron.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in a small amount of hot water and add to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll.

Shape and rest

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

  2. Place the cut cakes in buttered or floured tins.

  3. Let the cakes stand for 24 hours before baking.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes.

  2. Optionally, ice the cakes after baking or brush with sweetened water before baking.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes stay soft and dense.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help the cakes rise and lighten slightly.
Flour
Provides structure, so the dough becomes stiff enough to roll and cut.
Almonds
Add texture and a nutty richness to the crumb.
Citron
Adds chewy texture and candied citrus flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Resting the dough for 24 hours. The rest lets the spices, sugar and dough hydrate and meld, and lets the baking soda work evenly, so the cakes bake with better flavour and texture. Skipping it can leave the cakes flatter and less aromatic.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, almond, flour):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, almond, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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