Lebkuchen

In the best Lebkuchen your spices, candied fruits, lemon rind, vanilla, and beaten egg yolks are stirred in a vat of hot honey and brown sugar. Directly from the oven a boiled sugar glace is spread over the warm cookie until it crystalizes. Fantastic--loved by everyone. The cookie recipes on AOL are horrific!

Does anyone have a traditional recipe?

Hello all-- I have been reading your comments and have been disappointed. My husband is German and I have lived in Germany seven years. All his family is German and I have spent numerous hours with friends and family here tasting different recipes and getting to know German traditions commercially and "home grown." I was looking to see if I could get some alternate recipes for the holidays and came across your comments. Comments should be on the taste of the cookies, not what you think something should be like in light of your own family traditions. Lebkuchen here in Germany are sometimes with a thin or thicker icing, sometimes not. Most are in a round shape the size of a softball, but some are smaller. Most do not have any decorations on top, but nuts are always ground into the recipe. Honey is rarely used, although it can be. Some recipes hardly have any flour in it but mainly ground nut. "Leb" just means ginger, so Lebkuchen is the German version of our American ginger cookies. Germans tend not to have it as spicy or gingery as ours, though, and it tends to be softer (that's why it is called a "cake" --Kuchen-- vs a cookie) This particular recipe I have not yet tried, however I decided to comment upon all your negative (and if I may, rather ignorant) comments. Good luck!

My family were pastry chefs in Germany and this is the lebkuchen that is the best. It is the simplest! It takes just like the old one that takes hours and needs honey and molasses, totally unnecessary in this day and age or for a diabetic. Let's not chain ourselves to the past!

Yeah, this isn't Lebkuchen. It doesn't even have all the spices you need for it in this recipe.