Monday 8 December 2014

Pepparkakor (Swedish Gingerbread)

Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.

What better way to get into the festive spirit than to fill your kitchen with cinnamon, ginger and cloves?

I'm a big fan of Swedish foods and flavours but to be honest with you, I've not made enough of an effort to actually make anything remotely Scandinavian.  With Christmas just around the corner I thought these traditional biscuits would be a good start!
I've read all sorts of things about pepperkakor - Pippi Longstocking (normally a sloppy girl!) cleaned her kitchen floor so she could roll out her pepparkakor, King Hans had a bad temper so was prescribed gingerbread by his doctor because it was thought that it made you happy (this is true!  I was very happy eating mine!) and if you place a pepparkakor in your palm, make a wish and then tap it in the middle, if it breaks into three pieces your wish will come true…I forgot to make a wish because this happened purely by mistake!


Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.


Cream the butter and sugar together then bit by bit add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cream until the dough has formed.  It's quite a dense and sticky dough so took a while for it to all come together.

Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least an hour but up to a day.

Preheat your oven to 170C (fan oven).


Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.


Roll the dough until about a millimetre thin - I found that as the dough is so sticky (and didn't want to use any extra flour), rolling it between sheets of cling film worked really well!


Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.


Cut out pieces of dough using your favourite cutters.  Traditionally pepparkakor are cut out in the shape of men, women and pigs.  Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of pig shaped biscuit cutters this weekend so stuck with hearts.


Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.


I lined a baking tray with foil but left it un-greased - if you have a good non-stick baking tray it should be fine without lining it.

Bake for between 6 -8 minutes until the edges start to brown and cool on a baking rack.


Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.


These are delicious enough to eat plain but I wanted to pretty them up a little so mixed up 1 cup of icing sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of water to create a simple icing.  I am by no means a good icer but I did my best - what to you think?


Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.

Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.


You can also use these to make really lovely tree decorations - because my kitty likes to climb the tree on a regular basis plus is partial to a biscuit if you leave any out, I decided against decorating the whole tree with them…


Christmas has arrived in my kitchen!  Pepparkakor are traditional Swedish gingerbread biscuits which fill your house with the smell of ginger, cinnamon and cloves.


Do you have any Christmas baking traditions?

3 comments:

  1. I love the smell of cinnamon and ginger. My mummy bakes such cookies in a form of deer.

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