Pepparkakor..

By all means on Christmas pepparkakor is served in Sweden and by the way December 9th is pepparkakans dag - pepper cake day - since 1996.

If you translate pepparkakor into english, they are called pepper cake.

In the middle biscuits were seasoned with pepper, which was the most important merchandise of the orient back then.

People thought, that pepper had a calming effect and soothed digestion problem.

Today the crunchy spicy biscuits don’t contain pepper anymore, but cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and cloves.

When my mom came to visit, we baked pepperkakor with Irma. The little mouse was really excited to be able to help and to cut out little figures.

You have to prepare the dough the day before, since it has to stay in the fridge over night.

I can remember, nibbling from it when I was a child. My siblings pounced on it too. The not baked dough is just so delicious! My mom had to defend it with her hands and feet, so there was some left over to bake.

For Irma that spicy taste was still new and she tasted just a little bit of the dough. She liked the done biscuits way better.

In the recipe sirap is used. A lot of Swedish baking recipes contain pure and dark sirap, a cane sugar syrup. My mom always brings some from Sweden to Austria, because you can’t buy this here.

I you can’t find cane sugar syrup there is another possibility too. I did some research and found out, that you can substitute Sirap with Golden Syrup (you can order it on Amazon). But honey or corn syrup works too.

Mom’s pepparkakor

5 oz melted butter

5 oz sirap (cane sugar syrup, Golden Syrup or honey)

5 oz sugar

5 oz Farin sugar (brown sugar)

5 oz whip creme

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cloves

1 1/4 tablespoon bicarbonate (natron)

approx. 4 1.4 cups wheat flour

1.     Stir butter, sugar and sirap until it’s smooth and add the rest of the ingredients .

2.     The dough should be quite loose and covered refrigerated over night. The next day it’s easier to process the dough.

3.     On a surface covered with flour roll out the dough. To make it easier, don’t roll out the whole mass, but only part of it.

4.     Cut out the desired figures and put them on a baking sheet covered with baking paper.

5.     Bake in preheated oven at 347- 392F for approx. 5 min.

6.     Store the cooled down biscuits best in a biscuit box at room temperature.. or nibble right away.

Irma decorated a couple of the pepparkakor with sugar icing and sugar sprinkles, which she proudly presented to her kindergarten teachers.

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