In any traditional Swedish home, the smell of these home baked cookies will be found wafting throughout the home at Christmas time. The Swedes really love cooking for the holiday season and the Christmas Eve celebration is the highlight of the year.
Don't be worried by the literal translation of Pepparkakor, which means pepper cookies, it may have been that in olden times there was a little pepper in the recipe, but now there's just a tasty mix of spices.
Cookies
Christmas Spice Cookies or Pepparkakor
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
- 8 ounces (2 sticks) butter
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 2 teaspoons orange zest
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground cloves
1. Preheat oven to 400˚ F.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Stir in egg, corn syrup, orange juice, and orange zest.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Stir flour mixture into the creamed butter until combined.
4. Roll dough out to 1/8 inch and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the oven. Cool cookies on wire racks.
These are a wonderful cookie recipe for children to make and taste even better when cut out with all manner of shape of cookie cutters!
Enjoy making and eating this traditional Swedish cookie recipe.
Recipe for Traditional Swedish Christmas Cookies or Pepparkakor
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