Elisenlebkuchen (Nuremberg Gingerbread Cookies on Wafers)

Method

1. 1Chop the candied orange peel and candied lemon peel as fine as you can, almost to a paste — a mini food processor does this in under a minute, or use a sharp knife and patience. Coarse pieces of peel are the main reason home-baked Elisenlebkuchen can taste patchy: a stray chunk gives one bite all the citrus and leaves the next one bland. Set the chopped peel aside; it goes in with the nuts, not with the eggs.
2. 2In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, brown sugar and honey with a hand mixer for 5 to 6 minutes, until the mixture turns pale and triples in volume, like a loose sabayon. This whipped egg is the only thing holding Elisenlebkuchen together and giving them a little lift in the oven, since there is no flour and no raising agent anywhere in the recipe. Do not rush this step, or the cookies bake dense and flat.
3. 3Fold in the ground almonds, ground hazelnuts, ground walnuts, chopped candied peel, gingerbread spice, cinnamon and salt with a spatula, working from the bottom up so you do not knock the air out of the eggs. The mixture turns thick, sticky and hard to stir just before all the nuts disappear; stop as soon as no dry patches remain. It should hold a soft peak on the spatula, not run off it.
4. 4Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour. The mixture firms up enough to portion cleanly, and the spices and citrus peel have time to spread through the whole batch instead of tasting concentrated in a few spots. If you are short on time you can skip this and bake right away, but the flavour is noticeably rounder after the rest.
5. 5Heat the oven to 160°C top and bottom heat (140°C fan) and line two trays with baking paper. Lay out the wafers and spoon about 40 g of the chilled mixture onto each one, a heaped tablespoon or one small ice-cream scoop. Smooth it out with a wet spoon or wet fingers right to the edge of the wafer, leaving no bare rim — a rim without mixture is the main reason wafers pop off after baking, since nothing is holding them to the top. A slight dome in the centre is fine.
6. 6Bake one tray at a time on the middle rack for 20 to 22 minutes. The surface should look matte and no longer wet, with barely any colour — Elisenlebkuchen are meant to stay pale and soft inside, and a deeply browned top means they have dried out. Cool completely on a rack before glazing; warm cookies melt the icing straight off.
7. 7Split the cooled cookies into two batches. Whisk the icing sugar with the lemon juice until smooth and spread it over one batch. Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl set over barely simmering water, stirring until glossy, and coat the second batch. Leave both batches on a rack, uncovered, overnight, until the icing and chocolate have set hard, and only then layer them into a tin.