The Seven Nordic Christmas Cookies

Sugar, cream, spice, and everything nice. From the Museum to your home, we’re sharing our favorite recipes for the Seven Nordic Christmas Cookies tradition—all from different parts of the Nordic countries. Enjoy them for your next holiday or any time of the year. God Jul!

Pebernødder (Denmark)

A tiny Danish cookie traditionally served at Christmas flavored with spices, nuts, and pepper. Fun to make for kids and adults alike!

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup light or dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup almonds or hazelnuts pulverized (prepared almond meal, not almond flour, works well here)
• 2 ½ cups all‐purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
• ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon of each clove and finely ground black pepper
• 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted if necessary to remove lumps

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F and prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment. Or use ungreased cookie sheets.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and mix well.
3. Add pulverized nuts and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl combine flour and spices.
5. Add to the butter mixture and mix until a stiff dough forms.
6. Shape the dough into a ball.
7. Cut off a portion of the dough at a time and roll with a hands-on work surface to make a “snake” about ½–thick. Use a scissors or knife to snip off ½–inch pieces of dough. Place on cookie sheet about ¾–inch apart.
8. Bake for about 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on rack. Meanwhile, sift powdered sugar into a flat bowl.
9. While still slightly warm, toss the cookies in the powdered sugar. Knock off extra sugar.
10. Store in an airtight container.

Christina’s Christmas Cookies

From Tasty Traditions (Nordic Museum, out of print)

Ingredients

• ½ cup powdered sugar
• 1¼ cup flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup quick‐cooking oatmeal
• 1 cup butter (or margarine)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• Jimmies or crystal sugar

Directions

1. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add vanilla, flour, salt, and oats, and mix well.
3. Divide the dough in half.
4. Roll each half into a log 1–inch in diameter.
5. Roll each log in jimmies or crystal sugar.
6. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill well (at least 2 hours).
7. Cut in ¼–inch slices.
8. Bake on a parchment‐lined cookie sheet at 350°F 7–10 minutes or until lightly brown.
9. Makes about 6–7 dozen cookies. This makes quite a small cookie. Feel free to roll larger logs for larger cookies and watch the baking time carefully.

Serinakaker (Norway)

Traditional Norwegian butter cookies for Christmas and any time! Makes about 3‐4 dozen 2” cookies

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups (300 gram) all‐purpose flour
• ¾ cups (85 grams) of powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 14 tablespoons (7/8 cups) (200 grams) butter, cold
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 1 egg

For decorating:

• 1 beaten egg white for brushing
• Pearl sugar or slivered almonds

Instructions

1. Mix the dry ingredients with a whisk: flour, powdered sugar, vanilla sugar, baking powder, and salt.
2. Chop the cold butter into cubes and add it to the dry ingredients. Crumble the mixture with your hands or use a stand mixer until it forms small crumbs, like coarse sand.
3. Beat the egg in a separate bowl for about 30 seconds, then add it to the butter/flour mixture. Mix until the dough comes together but don’t overwork. Makes a quite stiff dough.
4. Roll the dough into a log, wrap and place it in the refrigerator for about an hour. If your kitchen is cool and the dough is stiff, don’t refrigerate.
5. Preheat the oven to 350°F, and rack in the center.
6. If refrigerated: remove from refrigerator, pull off small sections of dough, and roll into small balls in your hands (about 1¼ inches diameter). Or if not refrigerated, use a cookie scoop (#70 works well).
7. Place the dough balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Flatten with a fork, the bottom of a glass, or your palm.
8. Brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with pearl sugar or slivered almonds.
9. Bake at 350°F for about 10 minutes, rotating front to back about halfway through, until the bottom is very slightly brown. Will be a pale cream color on top. Do not overbake.
10. Remove from oven, let cool slightly on the cookie sheet and then remove to cooling rack. Cool completely before storing.

Adapted from Ashley Adamant, adamantkitchen.com

Princess Gems (Sweden)

(Marianne Livingstone/Carina Halgren) From Tasty Traditions, (Nordic Museum, out of print)

Ingredients

• 1 cup shortening
• ½ cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baker’s ammonia
• 2½ cups flour
• 1 cup shredded coconut About ½ cup powdered sugar

Sharon’s notes on ingredients:

Baker’s ammonia at Scandinavian Specialties Use Bob’s All-Purpose White Flour

Cream shortening and butter

Directions

1. Add sugar and cream again.
2. Mix flour with baker’s ammonia.
3. Add mixed dry ingredients to creamed ingredients.
4. Mix dry and creamed ingredients.
5. Stir in coconut.
6. Form into balls the size of small walnuts.
7. Bake on greased (or parchment paper) cookie sheet at 350°F 17–20 minutes until just beginning to turn golden.
8. When cool, dust with powdered sugar.

Sharon’s notes on instructions:

• Or use a 1 teaspoon or 1½ teaspoon cookie scoop.
• Makes about 11 dozen smaller scoop cookies or 7 dozen larger scoop cookies.

Einar’s Cookies (Finland)

From Tasty Traditions (Nordic Museum, out of print)

Ingredients

• 1 cup room temperature butter
• ⅔ cup sugar
• 1 cup finely ground nuts (filberts, almonds, or pecans), 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Cream the butter and sugar very well.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
3. Shape into long rolls about ½–inch in diameter.
4. Cut into 2 inches pieces and form into half‐moon shapes. Or simply leave them in 2-inch logs.
5. Place on a parchment‐lined cookie sheet. (1 inch–1½ inch apart.)
6. Bake at 325°F for 16–20 minutes.
7. Remove to cooling rack.
8. When cool, sprinkle powdered sugar on top.
9. Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

Currant Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter at room temperature 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ cup dried currants

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. With an electric mixer cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. About 3 minutes.
3. Add egg and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking powder.
5. Add flour mixture gradually to the butter mixture and mix until well blended.
6. BY HAND stir in the currants.
7. Using a small (about 1–inch) ice cream scoop, make small balls of dough. You can also roll the balls in your hand. If you do this, use a measuring spoon to scoop dough so that all of your cookies are the same size.
8. Place balls on parchment lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Flatten with a fork making deep grooves.
9. Bake until golden but not brown, about 5–8 minutes. Remove to rack to cool.

Ginger Snaps (Elise Olsson)

From Tasty Traditions (Nordic Museum, out of print)

Ingredients

• ¾ cup shortening 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 4 tablespoons molasses, 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda, ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon cloves

Sharon’s notes on ingredients:

• Use dark molasses.
• Use Bob’s All-Purpose White Flour.
• Add ½ cup diced crystallized candied ginger chips for a different texture.

Directions

1. Cream together shortening, sugar, egg, and molasses.
2. Sift all dry ingredients together.
3. Add to the creamed mixture and mix.
4. Make balls the size of walnuts or smaller.
5. Place on greased (or parchment paper) cookie sheet.
6. Flatten with glass dipped in sugar.
7. Bake at 350°F for 10–11 minutes.

Sharon’s notes on instructions:

• Or use 2 teaspoons of the cookie scoop.
• Makes about 3 dozen 2½–inch cookies.
• For crisp cookies, bake until nearly all cookies have “fallen”.
• For slightly chewy cookies, remove them from the oven before cookies have “fallen”.

Enjoy these Nordic cookie recipes! The rest of this article The Seven Nordic Cookies can be found in Nordic Kultur 23/24. Recipes brought to you by the amazing ladies of Goodies2Go.