Nordic Rye Gingerbread Cookies
As we would retreat from the dinner table at Christmas, the coffee table would be ready and covered with gingerbread, chocolate, cookies and other sweets that we can nibble on for several days at end. The tradition claims that we should bake seven sorts of cookies and sweets for Christmas and serve it during the season. This is a tradition that excist in every Norwegian family- even though not everyone takes it as serious anymore, we have all heard of it and it’s still quite common.
There are many different types of cookies and sweets, so one would not have to bake the same ones every year, but we have our favorites. In my family we would often make ‘krumkaker’, ‘sandkaker’, ‘sirupssnipper’ and ‘gingerbread cookies’. Krumkake is one of the most famous and traditional of the sweets and one of the most beautiful to look at. Best served with a good dollop of cloudberry cream. If I get the time I will make another post on it later this season!
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In this post I’ve given all the focus to the wonderful and oh so traditional gingerbread cookie. Even though this is famous all over- and especially in Scandinavia I’ve made mine with rye flour this year, hence making it slightly more Norwegian as rye is an old grain used in Norway for a long time. Wholegrain rye flour makes these cookies slightly healthier as it contains a lot of fibre and other nutrients. I’ve also reduced some of the sugar and butter in this recipe, just for the health of it!
Nordic Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
150g butter
150g sugar
1 dl syrup
1 dl full fat cream
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
4 dl wheat flour
2 dl rye flour
Decoration
Icing sugar
1 egg white
Instructions
- Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan.
- When the sugar is melted, add the cream and stir in.
- Add the spices and baking soda to the flour and shift it in the melted butter mix.
- Blend well and wrap the dough in cling film and leave over night in the fridge. Make it as flat as possible to make it easier to roll out.
- The next day, let it rest for an hour and preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius. Roll the dough out to about 1/2 cm thick and use a cookie cutter to make different shapes and sizes.
- Bake in the oven for around 10 minutes or until slightly golden.
- Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
- Mix one egg white with icing sugar until quite solid.
- Put in an icing bag and decorate the ginger bread when completely cooled.
christmascookiesFoodgingerbreadHealthyholisticholistic nutritionnordicreciperyescandinavianwholegrain
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