Spiced lebkuchen

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. In a large saucepan, melt together the butter, honey, treacle, sugar and both citrus zests over a medium heat. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
2. While the mixture is still warm, sift in the flour, cocoa powder, ground spices, bicarb of soda and salt. Stir in the ground almonds and add the egg yolk, then mix together to form a dough. Gently knead until smooth – it should be warm, very soft and slightly greasy.
3. Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the dough until about 1cm thick. It will be soft and sticky, but you don’t need to be gentle with it as it’s a robust dough.
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4. Using your cutters, stamp out as many biscuits as you can, lifting them onto the prepared baking sheets with a palette knife. Re-roll the dough remnants and continue stamping out until you have about 35 biscuits.
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes – the biscuits will still be quite soft when you take them out of the oven. Leave to firm up on the trays for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice to make a quite runny icing (you may need to add a splash of water if your lemon isn’t juicy). Dip the biscuits face-down in the icing (or just drizzle the icing over the top), then leave, icing-side up, to set on a wire rack.