I've been wanting to try making a biscuit box ever since that episode on The Great British Bake Off (where 99% of my inspiration comes from), and I've finally done it! Granted, execution leaves much to be desired, but I'm pretty happy with one or two things, like how the holly leaves came out. The box is made out of Lebkuchen, which simply put, is kind of like the German version of gingerbread, but the dark colour is achieved with rye flour instead of molasses, and honey gives it it's chewy, sticky consistency.
I tried to keep this simple-ish by limiting it to two types of piping tips, a leaf tip and a small round tip, but who are we kidding, this was a pretty monumental task, especially since we all know how bad I am at piping in general. I won't go into too much detail on how to pipe the decorations because I'm a terrible teacher, so here are some videos instead.
Holly Leaves Tutorial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdhEktQ9TUs
Border Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPX1YlHuU-4 (I used two types of borders from the 8 given here, a ripple border for the top of the box, and a combination of a ripple border and swag border)
For the Christmas Wreaths, I didn't find a good tutorial, so I just kind of winged it by piping individual layers of leaves in a circle, then layering it with more leaves to make it look more like a wreath, and then I just topped it with some holly berries.
I wanted to make things more organised, so I piped the holly leaves and Christmas wreaths on baking paper before hand and let them dry completely (at least overnight), and then stored them in plastic containers. When the Lebkuchen was done, I just piped some royal icing behind them and stuck them on the sides. It worked perfectly for the holly leaves, but the wreaths were extremely fragile and some of them broke along the way, so if you don't want them to crack (like the one below), maybe practice piping them on baking paper first, and then pipe them directly on the Lebkuchen box.
I also didn't want to use fresh royal icing since it wasn't going to be eaten immediately, and I'm a bit paranoid about uncooked egg whites, so I just got some pre-made royal icing at Cakeville. Quick shout out to Cakeville for having like, literally all your baking needs. Seriously, if you're ever missing something you need for baking, you need to check this place out. Plus prices are quite reasonable. It's not cheap, but for stuff that's practically impossible to find in regular German supermarkets, it's not exorbitant either. If you want to check this place out, it's on Wörther Str. 23, in the Prenzlauer Allee region.
Also got some edible glitter there to make things even more festive.
So on to the actual recipe!
Ingredients
- 300 g rye flour (Roggenmehl, or type 1150. Don't get Roggenmehl Vollkorn, that's for bread and contains little bits of grain in them, but get Dunkles Roggenmehl)
- 180 g brown sugar (or Rohzucker)
- 10 g cinnamon
- 10 g baking soda
- 20 g Lebkuchen spice (or, if you don't have it like I did, improvise with ground ginger, nutmeg and plenty of cinammon. Cloves and ground coriander would be ideal, but how many of us have that well-stocked of a spice pantry hmm?)
- 2 eggs
- 80 g honey
Method
- Mix eggs, sugar and honey in one bowl, and flour, baking soda and spices in another.
- Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet, until they come together to form a dough.
- Knead a little more to ensure ingredients are evenly distributed, then wrap in cling wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 3 hours, or overnight.
- Take out of fridge and roll into thickness you desire. I personally think I could have gone thinner, but these were such a bitch to roll out because the honey made the dough incredibly sticky.
- Cut into 6 pieces: the top, which should be slight bigger than the bottom, and two of the sides should be longer than the bottom, to allow for overlapping. Unfortunately, I wasn't neat enough with my measurements and they came out a bit wonky, which explains the messiness of the box overall
- (Optional since I didn't do this step, but I think it would help) My pieces turned out a little too puffy for my liking, so I think ideally, one should make a few shallow holes with a fork evenly throughout the dough after you've rolled it out to let some air escape.
- Bake for 15 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius. I opted to make mine a little more crispy to ensure the dough would hold up during construction.
- Leave to cool completely.
- Pipe ripple and swag borders on each side, then leave to dry completely.
- Pipe a thin line of royal icing on each side, and join the pieces together (except for the top).
- Leave to dry completely
- (optional) To hide the icing that you used as a glue, pipe a simple border on the corners to cover it. I just piped little round mounds.
- Fill with cookies from Xmas Projects #1, #2 and #3!
That's it for my epic Christmas baking journey! Happy holidays everyone!❆❅❉ *<]:{)❆❅❉
