I thought I knew about good gingerbread. After all, my other gingerbread recipe is super tasty. But then, I discovered Pepparkakor. 

I hate to be disloyal to one of my own recipes, but frankly, Pepparkakor is to my mind, the definitive gingerbread. The biscuits are thin and crispy, with a wonderful light texture and the perfect level of spice.

The dough is beautifully spiced, with quite a lot more cloves than other gingerbread, but surprisingly the cloves aren’t overpowering: instead they add a kind of peppery quality to the cookies. 

When I first made pepperkakor I was amazed that the dough, even though it was rolled out so thinly, was very stable and it was easy to move the cookie shapes from the bench to a baking tray without the shapes stretching or tearing. Trust the Scandinavians to get a recipe right! And of course, Christmas time is the perfect time to be rocking out your most amusing cookie cutters :). 

Pepparkakor 

Makes about 100 (this sounds like a lot, but they are very thin! The batch of cookies fills a medium size biscuit tin)

ingredients

100 grams butter at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp cardamom
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup water
2 cups flour

mixing

Place all ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until a firm dough forms and comes away from the sides of the bowl. Place the dough into a plastic ziplock bag (approx. 20cm square) and press flat into a square. Seal the bag and refrigerate at least overnight, preferably 24 hours. 

Remove half of the dough from the bag and knead until the dough is pliable. Roll out on a lightly floured surface until the dough is about 2mm thin. While rolling out, make sure that the dough is not sticking to the surface by continuing to sprinkle the surface and the top of the dough with flour as needed. The dough should cover approximately 25x35cm when rolled out.

Using cookie cutters, cut shapes from the dough. Its best to cut shapes of a similar size (or preferably the same shape) to ensure even baking. Using a palette knife, carefully transfer the shapes to baking sheets lined with bake paper. Reform the offcuts and roll out again, repeating until all the dough is used.

Bake the pepparkakor at 200 degrees Celsius for approximately 4-7 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie. The pepparkakor cookies I made for this post are 5-6cm wide, and took about 7 minutes to bake. Keep a close eye on the cookies as they will burn rapidly! The cookies will be golden, slightly risen and just a little soft to the touch when they are done. They will have a distinct spice smell at this stage. If the cookies feel very soft, bake for another minute or two.  Let the cookies cool a minute or two on the baking sheet, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. If the cookies are still soft when they are cool, put back into the oven for a further 2 minutes. They should be crispy when cold.

Repeat the process with the remaining dough. 

Enjoy!xxx