Pfeffernusse/Lebkuchen

I have very strong memories from when I was young going to visit my Granny in Bristol. Being from Germany, she was very fond of these yummy little spicy icing-coated biscuits which I now know are called either Pfeffernusse or Lebkuchen, and she always had some in whenever we visited her. Around Christmas time, Sainsbury's sell packets of Lebkuchen which I buy in bulk, but then this year I decided that along with buying the Sainsbury's ones I should actually have a go at making my own.

So once again I made use of my broadband connection and hunted around for some recipes. I found these two recipes online (from Channel 4 and All Recipes), and decided to go for a combination of the two, mainly using the Channel 4 recipe but adding in the molasses (treacle) from the All Recipes page. I used pomegranate molasses in this recipe, but I did not use the plum jam or the chocolate suggested in the Channel 4 recipe, preferring instead to simply cover the biscuits in icing.

Pfeffernusse

These little biscuits turned out really well, although I had to halve some of them as I'd made them far too big. I also foolishly ran out of icing part way through, so some biscuits only had two coats of the icing, but they still tasted suitably sweet and spicy. The only issue I came across was that there was just too much of the ground black pepper in these for my own personal preference, so I think next time I'll halve the amount of black pepper that I add.

I like to think that my Granny would have been proud of me for making these.

Beckie.