Anyone who's been to a Viennese Christmas market will have seen the heart-shaped, iced pieces of Lebkuchen hung up with care along the front of the wooden market stalls. Along with miniature Christmas cookies, soft, chewy, and heavily-spiced Lebkuchen is in many ways the sweet culinary symbol of a Germanic Christmas. The ancient Egyptians were the first recorded people to make cakes out of honey -- at the time, the only sweetener available. This technique was later practiced by the Greeks and the Romans. The Germanic origins of Lebkuchen as we know it today can be traced back to the thirteenth century and are remarkably similar to that of the Christmas cookie itself: baked in the monasteries, flavoured with newly-available spices like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and cardamom. As to which town lays claim to Lebkuchen, that argument between Ulm and Nuremberg will perhaps never be settled.
The best Lebkuchen in Vienna is made by Pirker, a family firm based in the picture-postcard town of Mariazell, a 2-hour car ride due south-west of Vienna in the northern Styrian Alps. Pirker has been making Lebkuchen here since 1846 when the current generations' great-grandparents established Cafe Stadt Wien, whose premises included a small Lebkuchen bakery. Their first store in Vienna on Stephansplatz opposite where the Fiaker line up their horses and carriages opened in 2013. What makes their Lebkuchen irresistible is the honey content: 50 percent of every piece of Lebkuchen is made up of pure honey free of additives and other nasties. The honey as well as the flour, eggs, and fruit used in their Lebkuchen are all sourced domestically. Their product range is also dazzling: the Nussdorfer, studded with hazelnuts; Arancini, strewed with candied orange; Pumpernickl, filled with a paste made from figs, dates, raisins, plums, lemon, and orange as well as hazelnuts and walnuts. My favourite, however, is the original.
