Kathrinchen - the Gingerbread That Opens the Christmas Season

So a Roman emperor asks you to marry him, and your answer is “No, thanks.” Better think twice! Catherine of Alexandria turned down a marriage proposal coming from the emperor Maxentius in year 305, and guess what happened? Maxentius tried to kill Catherine using a breaking wheel (hence the wheel in this picture) - but didn’t succeed and had her beheaded instead.

In memory of that event the Germans traditionally start their Plätzchen season on the 24th of November, on the eve of St. Catherine’s day, and bake a special form of Lebkuchen, or gingerbread, called Kathrinchen. I only found about this tradition today, but next year I’m definitely going to serve these lemon-scented gingerbread cookies on that day. And bake them a couple of days in advance: these cookies need 4-5 days to get softer and to better reveal their nice lemony taste.

This recipe is again from Feinste Weinachtsbäckerei. I don’t have a proper Kathrinchen cookie cutter, so I used another rectangular cookie cutter, about 4cm wide and 6cm long.

For about 40 of  cookies that size you need:

• 100g honey


• 50g sugar


• 25g butter


• 1 egg yolk


• 30g sugar


• 2 tsp gingerbread spice mixture


• zest of one lemon


• 1 Tbsp rose water


• 1 tsp potash


• 250g all-purpose flour (I baked mine with spelt 1050)


• 1 pinch of salt

Plus for the icing:

• 4 Tbsp sugar


• 2 Tbsp hot water


• 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Place honey, 50g sugar, and butter in a pan and heat until sugar has melted. Mix egg yolk, 30g sugar, spices, and lemon zest together in a baking bowl. Mix potash with rose water and add to the egg-sugar mixture. Now add honey mixture and flour (I added a pinch of salt in the flour, although it wasn’t in the original recipe) and stir with a wooden spoon until all ingredients are well combined. Place the dough in the fridge for one hour or so.

Roll out the dough 0,5cm thick and cut it into rectangular cookies either with a knife or with a cookie cutter. Bake about 15 minutes in a preheated oven (180 C).

Once the cookies have cooled a bit, brush them with lemon-sugar icing (just mix all ingredients together). This makes the cookies sprinkle like they had a bit frost on them!