Hatzel Lebkuchen from Selb in the Fichtelgebirge mountains since 1928
The Hatzel Lebkuchen bakery in Selb, on the edge of the Fichtelgebirge, bakes hand-spread Elisen gingerbread according to the recipe of master confectioner Lorenz Hatzel. Founded in 1928 as a bakery with an adjoining café, it is now run by the third generation, grandsons Christian and Michael, using the same hand-spreading machine as back then.
Hatzel Lebkuchen is a small Upper Franconian manufactory that exclusively produces Elisen gingerbread, the most demanding variety of wafer-based gingerbread. More than a third of the dough consists of hazelnuts and almonds, there is hardly any flour in it, and every single gingerbread is spread onto the wafer by hand. Baking only takes place during the season, which begins every year in September.
In 1928, Lorenz Hatzel opened his bakery
"Our grandfather, master confectioner Lorenz Hatzel, founded a bakery with an adjoining café on Ludwigstraße in Selb in 1928," is how the grandsons still begin their own company history to this day.
Even then, he produced Elisen gingerbread according to his own recipe, entirely by hand and with a machine that spread the tough dough onto the baking wafers. His son Martin later took over the business and passed it on to his two sons, Christian and Michael, who now run the manufactory in the third generation.
Over the decades, the café with its shop counter has become a pure gingerbread business, but the address has remained the same. Anyone ringing the bell at Ludwigstraße 32 today stands in front of the same building where the first Elise was created nearly a hundred years ago.
Selb is located in the extreme northeast of Bavaria, where Upper Franconia borders Bohemia and the Fichtelgebirge mountains trail off. The town became known for its porcelain, for Rosenthal and Hutschenreuther, and anyone walking through the streets today can still see the town's history of craftsmanship. A gingerbread bakery fits into this picture just as well as the manufactories all around.
Elisen gingerbread and nothing else
Hatzel does not carry stollen, printen, or speculoos, but instead concentrates entirely on a single type of pastry.
The range includes classic Elisen with sugar glaze, with dark chocolate couverture, and with milk chocolate, as well as a version without any coating. Those who cannot decide can reach for the mixed bag, which is available in a six-piece and a three-piece pack.
In addition, the brothers bake walnut Elisen gingerbread, in which the walnut replaces the hazelnut, as well as a version entirely without flour. The Elisen gingerbread confections offer the same dough in bite-sized pieces, coated in two types of chocolate. Gift tins with three and six gingerbreads as well as a chocolate cream round off the program.
The formats range from a single gingerbread to a three-piece bag and a six-piece bag, each tied with a dark red ribbon. For those who want to give something more substantial, the gingerbread is also available in gift tins, and with the chocolate cream, there is a spread available that comes from the same bakery. The large bags weigh 350 grams, the small one weighs 175 grams, and the confections come in at 100 grams.
Why the Elise is the gold standard
Elisen gingerbread is not a flavor, but a protected quality grade with clear standards behind it.
An Elisen gingerbread must contain at least 25 percent almonds, hazelnuts, or walnuts, and may contain no more than ten percent cereal products. Those who do not meet these values cannot use the name and are simply called wafer gingerbread. Hatzel is far above this in terms of nut content and describes its own recipe as "more than a third sun-ripened hazelnuts and almonds, noble oriental spices, finest candied lemon and orange peel, the best marzipan, very little flour."
This composition makes the mass dense and moist rather than light and crumbly. An Elisen gingerbread is therefore more filling than its size might suggest, and it remains soft for weeks because the nuts slowly release their oil.
No one knows for sure where the name comes from, but for generations, people in Nuremberg have told stories of a baker's daughter named Elise for whom her father baked the best gingerbread he could manage. The story is not documented, but it has been handed down persistently enough that it belongs to the pastry just as much as candied lemon peel.
What is certain, however, is that gingerbread has been a product of long-distance trade from the very beginning. It never would have existed without cinnamon and candied citrus peels from the south. The old "Lebzelter" (gingerbread bakers) therefore sat where trade routes converged, and Franconia was one of these crossroads for centuries.
Copper kettles, rolling pins, and an old machine
The Elise dough is so sticky that it can neither be poured nor rolled out, but must be spread by hand onto every single wafer.
For this purpose, the hand-spreading machine from the founding era is still in use in Selb, alongside copper kettles, whisks, wooden spoons, rolling pins, and dough scrapers. The more nuts there are in the dough, the harder it is to process, which is why an assembly line is of no help here and the quantity remains limited. What is produced in a season depends directly on how many hands are in the bakery, not on how fast a machine runs.
The spice mixture remains a family matter; Christian and Michael do not reveal its composition. Cinnamon stands out clearly when eating, while everything else remains a hint. Under every gingerbread lies the baking wafer, that paper-thin sheet of flour, water, and starch that has been used under gingerbread since monastic times and is what allows it to be removed from the baking sheet in the first place.
It is leavened with hartshorn salt, the classic leavening agent for gingerbread bakers, which allows the flat cake to rise without making it airy. That is exactly what distinguishes a gingerbread from a cake where baking powder does the job and provides volume.
The candied orange peel also deserves a second look, because in addition to orange peel, it contains lemon peel and citron, that thick-skinned citrus fruit which consists almost entirely of white pith. Once candied, it provides the light, translucent pieces in the cross-section and a slightly resinous note that grounds the cinnamon spice.
Which variety fits which afternoon
The three coatings differ less in the dough than in how much of it comes through.
The sugar glaze is the quietest; it only preserves the moisture and lets the spices, candied lemon peel, and marzipan shine through unfiltered. The dark chocolate couverture places a tart wall in front of it and makes the gingerbread more sophisticated, while the milk chocolate reconciles both camps. Finally, the confections are the most chocolatey version, because there is a lot of coating on a small amount of dough. Anyone who has never eaten an Elise is best off with the mixed bag, as it presents all three styles side-by-side.
Baking takes place exclusively during the season, which begins every year in September, when the first shipments leave the house, and ends with the Christmas business. In the spring and summer, the hand-spreading machine stands still, which is why the gingerbread is not available from us all year round.
Stored closed and in a cool place, the Elisen will keep for weeks. They even improve over time because the spices slowly migrate into the nut mass and become rounder there. A bag bought at the beginning of December tastes better rather than worse between the years.
A strong black tea from our tea range goes well with it, as does a glass of mulled wine in the late afternoon. And for those who want to change regions while snacking, the Aachen Printen from Printenbäckerei Klein offers a Rhenish counterpart to the Franconian Elisen. Let yourself taste through the varieties.
