Christmas cookie baking number 2

December 4th

Today is all about the second Christmas cookie baking that 's taken place in our home this year.  In Norway we bake seven different varieties of cookies in the run up to Christmas.  The first bake can be found here:   Pepperkake   It's a wonderful tradition and each year I look forward to it very much.  Today's bake are similar to Pepperkake  with the omission of cardamom.  These are small bites and look different to traditional cookies making a great appearance on the plate.  Give them a try, I think you'll like them.
 

Peppernotter

You will need:

♥  1 cup of butter
♥  1 cup of densely packed brown sugar
♥  1 egg
♥  3 cups of plain flour
♥  1 tsp baking powder
♥  1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
♥  1/2 tsp ground ginger
♥  1/2 tsp ground  cloves


Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Stir in the egg.

Sift all other ingredients to make a stiff dough.

Pinch off handfuls of dough and roll into 1/2 inch sausage roll.  Cut each sausage into 1/2 inch pieces and then pinch either end to make a pointed oval shape, see photographs for clarity.

Place a blanched almond on top of each 'peppernotter'.  I ran out half way and had to use half pieces of walnut, it works just as well.  Place on a baking tray with greaseproof paper and bake for about 8 minutes or until just golden.

Cool on a wire rack before storing in an air tight container.

 ♥  Have you started any Christmas baking or cooking?  ♥

 

Sharing my four other Christmas posts making it FIVE
Advent ideas
Christmas cookie 1
Scandinavian Christmas kitchen
although from last year, this post ties in well with the kitchen post above, thought you might like it...
Painting the house red
 I'm posting everyday in the lead up to Christmas trying to share my enthusiasm and sprinkle the joy your way, so today I am joining in with

Amy taking five minutes of my day to share with you my five posts. 

Christmas kitchen Scandinavian style

December 3rd

Our kitchen like many is the hub of the home.  Homework is completed here, coffee and chatter held frequently and of course preparations for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as much eating takes place in this room.  I suspect for many Norwegians the tradition of decorating the kitchen for Christmas from December 1st is their way of allowing the Christmas cheer to gradually seep in.  It is in this room that all seven different cookie varieties will be baked and shared and so having the room cosy and red adds that extra cheer.  For me Christmas is red.  Adding red touches to your home that would not normally be found creates the love and joy of Christmas.  Want a Scandinavian kitchen for Christmas, just add red in little bits here and there...

Year on year favourite , the knitted cork nisse

Window sills make a great excuse for Christmas decorating

 

Adding red café style curtains instantly changes the room

Typically Norwegian to have 'Nisse' boys and girls

Easy to make twig decorations

These baking girls made from card are now over 10 years old

Christmas crockery, but note the red haberdashery ribbon added to the
shelves to make them festive, very quick and effective touches of red

Painting a chalk square on the wall and keeping a countdown tally is fun

The coffee corner, even the tea, coffee and sugar
pots at this time of year are red based

Do you have plants in the kitchen? Add a touch of red,
even a length of red ribbon

Adding in a few red utensils, the holly jug I made about 12
years ago and last year I painted the ends of wooden spoons
to add the Christmas red to the kitchen

Even the cooker gets a makeover, spot the apron bottom left
made a few years ago from a red tea towel.  Simple but
effective with a red felt pocket pouch

Christmas aprons a must

The kitchen glow that greets me every December morning

♥   Do you decorate the kitchen for Christmas?  ♥

Advent

December 2nd  

Advent to me is a special time.  Two things spring to mind when I think of Advent; family & togetherness and light.  What do I mean by light?  These darker days and nights need cheering up and what better than lighting the Advent star and Advent candelabra.  In Norway and Scandinavia this has long been a tradition.  I now know that here in the UK also four advent candles are lit for each of the Sundays leading up to Christmas but I think the Scandinavians have it down to a fine art, the art of bringing light to the dark.  Every room in our home over the advent period is decorated with extra lighting, it's warming, makes you feel happier and seems to spread a little joy.  I think it's not a bad tradition to have to bring out extra lights for this time of year.  Do you bring in extra light at this time of year?

 

I am beginning to have quite an eclectic group of advent stars and love them all

Of course this time of year many have a countdown to the big day with advent calendars.  Such a huge variety to be found, from ones with religious pictures to the other extreme with some just for Lego and makeup!  Appealing to my sense of the love of yarn there are several on line advent calendars the best for me being by the Norwegian company Drops design.  Being a naughty 'child' I tried to have an early peek behind door 3 this morning and was greeted by this...

Day 3 of the Drops design advent calendar, I tried to open it on December 1st!

Here is a snap shot of the doors to the advent calendar, all red and crocheted and ready to be opened...

The crocheted doors of the Drops design
advent calendar

And look what a gem of a pattern was to be found behind the door of December 1st.  There is no time for me to make it this year, but maybe, just maybe, I will make it early next year in anticipation of next Christmas...  I am already addicted and cannot wait to open them up each day.

 

 

Behind door one on December 1st

In case you want to follow each day too, here is the link:  Drops Design Advent Calendar 

On the brilliant Norwegian blog called Hverdagsmagi.   There is another advent calendar to make a crochet snowflake a day. Go have a look. 

http://www.hverdagsmagi.com/

And I need to mention Sandra at Cherry Heart who began a sock CAL yesterday with the idea of knitting a bit each day aiming to wear a new pair of socks on Christmas Day. What a lovely idea that is. 

My children laugh at my love for Christmas, I am assuming they are laughing with me!?!?!  On returning home from work last week my husband peeked into the spare room and saw all our Christmas 'tat' ready to be displayed around the house and all I could hear him mutter was something along the lines of 'guilty pleasure'.  He does put up very well with my enthusiasm for this time of year.  I think it's seeping wonderfully well into the children too...

So yes, we have a variety of advent calendars in our home too.  Now put away for another generation the advent books for little ones, written in Norwegian, they were a joy to read each night before bed, but alas the teenagers have outgrown them.

 

The below advent calendar I made when I was 16, a little rough around the edges, we wouldn't be without it.  I find gifts throughout the year to add to it so the cost is spread out.  The little bags are traditionally Scandinavian and are readily available in all the shops there.  I note this year that in the UK both Claus Ohlson and Ikea sell them too, but they would be easy to make or buy plain party bags to the same effect.  My children love this calendar and they take it in turns each day to be allowed to open a bag.

 

A very indulgent advent calendar that the children and I just love

This smaller embroidered calendar was made for my husband when we were newly married.  Again this year I left it too late to wash and iron it to show it at its best, but life's too short right?  He does love his daily small fix of chocolate at this time of year.

I made this as a newly wed for my husband, oh so many moons ago

 

I still love this embroidered tree

 

This year we are beginning a new advent calendar and I hope this one will soon become a family tradition.  I have sewn lots of little stockings and inside each one is a hand written joke, or fun forfeit or challenge for the day.  The idea being that we all partake in it.  A simple thing to do together in this busy world we all live in. The ones that take longer to complete I have engineered to be put into the stockings that fall at the weekend.  I am excited about this calendar countdown as it involves us all in doing something together.  Fingers crossed it works out well and becomes a new family tradition.  I love evolving traditions, don't you?  What's your favourite family tradition at this time of year?

 

In no particular order  here are the 'forfeit' slips inside our advent stockings:

Sing we wish you a Merry Christmas in the style of an alley cat

Say the alphabet backwards 

 

Juggle 3 clementines 

List all the Christmas reindeers

 

Work out your elf name. First name = a cookie starting with your initial Second name = Elf as the first syllable followed by the second half of your surname 

 

Name five different names for Father Christmas 

 

Play a round of charades

 

Play a Christmas related game of I Spy

 

Hop on one leg for a minute patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time 

 

Play rock, scissors, paper, stone for who had to wash up

 

In the next 24 hours say something g lovely and meaningful to everyone in the family 

 

Tell something about yourself that we don't know

 

Where will you be at Christmas in 5 years time 

 

Watch a Christmas film

 

Go on a Christmas light walk

 

How many 3 letter plus words can you make from Merry Christmas 

 

Recite/sing the 12 days of Christmas 

 

In the next 24 hours do an act of random kindness

 

Spell jingle bells backwards

 

Talk about Christmas trees for 45 seconds with no urms or errs 

 

Pick a partner. One is A one is B. A needs to wrap up B as a Christmas present   Remember to unwrap them too! 

 

Hum a Christmas carol and everyone has to guess it

 

 

All ready for the family to have some fun with forfeits and activities

Very simple to make, an old piece of wood with glued on clothes pegs

I think it looks quite striking, what do you think?

In school today a class that I worked with were making the finishing touches to their advent calendar. Using exact measuring they each had to make a house ready to encompass a little chocolate treat. All the houses came together to create the class village. How lovely is that? 

And every evening leading up to the 24th December 'Julaften' in Norway the children and I will sit down for 15 minutes and watch a TV advent calendar series that we watch every year, all about the Blue mountain in Norway and the people who live in it and by it.  Ahh, traditions, I love them.

 

And lastly some of our extra lighting in our home at this time of year...

 

♥  Wishing you a very happy advent  full of warmth and light  ♥

Christmas baking Scandinavian style

December 1st 

This is my absolute favourite time of the year and I make no apologies for the posts that will be coming from this blog EVERY DAY until Christmas Eve.  Yes, that's right EVERY DAY!  So come on join in with me, add to the discussions, let me know what traditions you have in your home or what you are going to try out for the first time this year.

This is my third year of posting every day in December.  I aim to share with you my love of Christmas, hope to enthuse you and sprinkle a little inspiration into your December days.  Can you sprinkle some back my way?

My second apology is to any 'old' readers out there for this post.  Christmas for us would not be Christmas without the baking of the seven traditional cookies that the Norwegians love to make to welcome both unexpected and planned guests that pop into their home on these darker days.  Many families will always bake the same seven every year and others will try new ones from year to year.  I have a couple of three that I have to make each year and the rest I like to mix it up a bit.  So here is our families absolute cannot be missed off the list Christmas cookies or as they say in Norway Julbak.

Today I bring you Pepperkaker, a Scandinavian version of ginger biscuits.

You will need:

NOTE: This recipe needs to be started the day before you intend to bake as the mixture needs to sit in the fridge overnight.

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

 

Add in the egg and stir well.

 

 

 

Sift the flour, baking powder and spices, mixing well.

 

Cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, pepper

The mixture should be a little sloppy.  It now needs to be left in the fridge over night to harden.  I tend to leave it in the sauce pan, but you can transfer it into a bowl. 

The following day, cut out a quarter of the mixture, roll it into a ball and roll out to approx. 3-4mm thick and use cookie cutters to cut out shapes.  Place on baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake in a preheated oven of 180 degrees for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Leave to cool on a wire rack before boxing up in an air tight container.  These biscuits should last for about 2-3 weeks. 

Eat and enjoy.

You can either freeze the mixture for up to four weeks or leave covered in the fridge for about 5 days before using if you so wish.  This mixture made about 40 large size cookies.  I often double the mixture as these are so popular in  our house that 40 are never enough. 

Lighting the first advent candle and eating pepperkake by the open fire, what a lovely start to this festive season...

Advent is such a cosy time of year.

♥  What are your baking 'must do' for Christmas?  ♥