Pepparkakor

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Everyone wants the pepparkakor recipe and then they lose it and want it again. The cookies get better and better as they age and it is very nice to come home in the bleak mid-January and realize you can have a nice pepparkakor with your tea.

Jul Pepparkakor

11oz light corn syrup (if you can get a cane sugar syrup like Lyle’s Golden, even better)
11 oz brown sugar
11oz butter
2 eggs
1 heaped tbs. of each of cloves, cinnamon, powdered ginger
2 tsp baking soda melted in a little warm water
2 lbs flour

Heat syrup; add sugar; let it melt; add butter and lightly beaten eggs. Add spices and a little flour. Add baking soda. Add the rest of the flour bit by bit. Knead dough when it is too stiff to stir. Keep overnight in a cool place before rolling and cutting out the cookies. Thin and crisp is traditional. I also like them a bit thicker. These days I make a half recipe. The full recipe is a LOT of cookies. I’ve never used this recipe to make a house, but I think it would work.

400o oven for five minutes.

When cool you can ice them with royal icing (one egg white 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar, 1-1 and1/4 c icing sugar, beaten forever).

Happy Sankta Lucia

It used to be the shortest day of the year, before they changed the calendar. This year, at least in Chicago, it is just the coldest. So stay warm. And if you haven’t done so already, go make bullar and let the scent of cinnamon and cardamom fill your kitchen. While they’re baking, you can read Making Light, where there is an interesting post up about the traditions and songs associated with Sankta Lucia. I have never been able to find the version of the song we sing. My family sings one verse; my cousins sing quite a different verse, and neither has ever turned up in the magical world of google.

Could we be the last remnants of some impossibly old and forgotten folk tradition…?