And so it begins...Advent

It's my favourite season of the year ~ WELCOME to you all.  Thank you for old friends revisiting and if you are new, so glad to have you onboard, pull up a chair, grab yourself a drink, tea or coffee or if the hour permits, perhaps something a little stronger, I have a penchant for a glass of Argentinian Malbec these days, although a cocktail or two never goes amiss! 

Every year I bake seven different
cookie varieties in the lead up to
Christmas, here you see
6 from a previous year

Here over the coming days, I will share with you the happenings of our eclectic home, a fusion of Scandinavian baking and crafts with anything else from anywhere else, all with the theme of home-crafted, home loved Christmas wonderfulness.  

For me, this time of year conjures up anticipation, excitement, wonderful smells and coming together to make things both edible and for decoration and gifts.  I was lucky and I fully acknowledge that in my home growing up, there was such a joyful emphasis on Christmas that it has not only seeped but has become a full-blown on love for me with the season of Advent.  Not everyone is as lucky or as fortunate; having a Scandinavian mother certainly helped me in this instance but I hope those of you not as over the top as myself can take a sense of joy that this blog may give you sparks of ideas to try or to allow the joy of this time of year to seep in and not despair at what many feel is now a commercial time of year.  This year more than ever, the pandemic that shall not be named has made this an unusual era to live in and what now looks to be an unusual Christmas too.  So more than ever I want to submerge myself in cinnamon and cardamon smells, craft paper and anything else that I can create to make the house a Christmas home.  Come along for the ride, follow me each day or dip in and out as you please.  You are more than welcome here at the eclectic home, if only I could open my actual doors to you all, these virtual ones will have to do...

Which leads me onto my first bake for Advent and Christmas.  It is traditional in Norway to bake a variety of cookies to enjoy with the family and to have ready for both expected and unexpected visitors alike.  We may not have many visitors this season but it is not stopping us from baking.  Norwegians always baked seven different varieties and many families have their 'set' must bake cookies.  We tend here to mix it up a bit each year and try new ones to us but always, always a Scandinavian variety.  One cookie that we make however every year without fail and would not be Christmas for us without it is the infamous pepperkake.

What is a Norwegian Christmas without pepperkake?  It’s the Norwegians answer to ginger cookies, but with a more mellow subtle flavour.  Some Norwegian recipes pack a punch with their spices but we in our family have a much gentler warming spice coming through.

I share with you again, the very same recipe that I have shared every single year.  If you’ve still not made it then I urge you to give it a go and bring some ‘kos’ * to your home this Christmas.

Method:

♥  Melt on a low heat, the syrup, sugar and butter.

♥  Allow to cool ever so slightly and then beat in the egg thoroughly.

♥  Sift in the flour, baking powder and spice and mix well.

At this stage the dough is quite gloopy, I tend to leave it in the pan and then place it in the fridge overnight, but you can transfer to a smaller bowl if you so wished.  This year I allowed it to cool in the pan for an hour or so and once it began to be semi-hard, I removed the mixture from the pan and rolled it into two fat sausage shapes, wrapping each separately in cling film and then placed into the fridge overnight.  This allowed me to slice off the next day exactly the right amount to roll out small batches at a time.  TIP: this dough softens very quickly, so only roll out and use a small amount at a time.

♥  The next day take out only a small amount of dough (see note 3) and roll out on a floured surface to about 3-4 mm thick and cut out shapes placing cookies on a greaseproof lined baking tray.  this is important.

♥  Bake on 175 degrees for approximately 10 minutes, or as in my fast oven less, until just golden brown.

♥  Cool on a wire rack before either icing or placing in an airtight container.  These will last for 2-3 weeks

I love heart shaped pepperkake the best.
But any shape works well 

This year as well as making the pepperkake cookies I also made house sides out of pepperkake for my advent candle display.  Some old followers may remember I did something similar with disastrous consequences see here, (scroll to the end) for what happened.  

This year I feel more confident that all will survive and so Sunday just past, we lit our first advent candle. We are most definitely on count down to Christmas Day.  Although if I am honest, it is these December days and nights that I savour the most.  Being in the kitchen, the hub of the home, baking and creating with family all around.  This year will be different from others as we will not be able to see all our loved ones. But we have promised ourselves that once we are through this pandemic we will come together if not to have another Christmas Day, but to at least have a family celebration of just being able to hug each other and be close.  Bring on that day.  In the meantime, I’m making the most of what and who I am allowed to be with and my heart swells.  I know I am one of the lucky ones.  

I drew out four different height and width house sides

Rolled out the pepperkake
dough onto the drawn templates

Bake for longer than the cookies bake until crisp so they
do not soften over the coming days

To make the icing so it is thick and has a shine to it.  I don’t measure out but I add in a good amount of icing sugar, one egg white and if need be top up with a few drops of water to form a thick paste.  I use a piping bag and nozzle normally but could not locate it sure we have someone who comes in and moves things around as I seem to not be finding many many things these days.  So I used a plastic food bag, added in the icing to that and then snipped off a teeny tiny corner of the bag and was able to pipe that way.  It would explain why my piping is a tad thicker than I would have liked but it still gave an ok effect.  It’s not as if we’re entertaining this year, is it?

Iced and ready to go, each house was numbered 1-4
to match the number of Sundays in Advent

Pepperkake house fronts for Advent

The first Advent candle was lit on Sunday

♥  Wishing you all a warm and joyful Advent  ♥

*kos ~ Norwegian form of hygge, we have hygge in Norway too but generally use the word kos and koselig, to mean warmth, comfort, cosy, loving, cuddling up type feel.  all the things that help us get through dark winter days.  It's a time to look forward to for all of these things not a time to despair.