Homemade Magenbrot

My boyfriend's dad loves Magenbrot and I wanted him to have some for his birthday. Unfortunatly, I have no idea what Magenbrot is called in English. I would describe it as some sort of gingerbread with a chocolate-sugar-coating. I've been looking for a good recipe for a long time and last autumn, I found one.


Magenbrot:

500g wholemeal flour
250g brown sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 tablespoons chocolate powder
1 tablespoon spice mixture for Birnbrot (still looking for an appropriate English translation of that, a spice mixture for gingerbread would probably work too)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
a pinch of salt
3dl milk-water (half milk, half water)
100g liquid honey

for the glaze:
80g dark chocolate
10g butter
5-6 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon chocolate powder
250g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

For the dough, mix flour, sugar, baking and chocolate powder, spice mixture, cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Warm up milk-water (don't bring to boil), stir in the honey and mix this with the dry ingredients until the dough is smooth. Pour the batter onto the tray and smooth it out until it is about 1.5 cm thick. Bake in the middle of the oven für 15 - 20 minutes. Let cool, then cut into pieces of 2x4 cm.

For the glaze, slowly melt chocolate with the butter. Then add chocolate powder and icing sugar. Do this carefully, otherwise your batter will lump! First, add only a little icing sugar and mix it well with the chocolate. Then add a little more icing sugar, whisk again, and so on. Add water, if the batter gets too thick. If your glaze has the right consistency, put about a forth of your Magenbrot pieces into a bowl and pour about a fourth of the glaze over it. Mix until the pieces are fully covered with the glaze. Then put on a wire rack and let dry. Do the same with the remaining Magenbrot pieces. If your glaze gets too thick, heat it up a little again and whisk well.

(from: Le Menu, 10/2009)

Of course, this does not taste exactly like Magenbrot you buy from the market but it sure was worth the try!