Norwegian Pepper Cookies a.k.a. Pepperkakers

When we asked our foreign exchange student, Maren, which cookie she would miss this year, she said, "Pepperkakers," so naturally, I wanted to make some, even though the word "pepper" kind of threw me off--Who would want to eat cookies that tasted like pepper?! Well, it turns out that pepperkakers are delicious, a lot like gingerbread cookies, and not really peppery.

I found this recipe via MORTEN RAND-HENDRIKSEN and Pinterest.

My first impression about baking these cookies was, "I don't know; people are saying they are a bit difficult to make--sticky, flour issues, etc." but I had absolutely no problem making them as shows on Mr. Hendriksen's site, though I did have to do a couple of conversions (Thank you, Google.).

Ingredients:

 

 4 and 1/3 sticks of butter

2.5 cups of sugar

1 and 1/4 cups molasses

1 1/4 cups whipping cream

8 cups flour (I used unbleached, all-purpose)

1 1/2 tsps ginger

1 1/2 tsps ground cloves

1 1/2 tsps ground pepper

3 tsps baking powder

5 teaspoons cinnamon

First, start the butter to melting in a 2-quart saucepan on the stove.

While it's heating, mix the spices into the top half of the flour 

(just to be sure they are distributed fairly)

When the butter is melted, add the sugar and molasses, and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

(This took about five minutes on low-medium heat.)

Remove it from the heat and add the cream.

At this point, I poured the contents of the pot into my mixer and began to add the flour gradually, mixing all the while. I used exactly 8 cups of flour; you may need to add more if the dough seems very wet. In the end, it has a beautiful caramelly color. This is what mine looked like after the flour had been added.

The recipe I followed said the dough would be quite difficult to stir by hand, but I had no issues whatsoever with my mixer.  Turn it into a bowl, cover with a sprinkle of flour and a towel,

and place in the fridge overnight "to rest."

When I took the dough out the next day, I found it to be quite firm but easy enough to work,
and it warmed up quickly when I kneaded it a little to roll out with a floured rolling pin. The recipe I read went on about how sticky the dough was and warned that I'd have to roll the cookies directly on the parchment paper. However, I found it no trouble at all to simply roll it out on our plastic laminate counter sprinkled with a little flour. Occasionally, I had to lift the cookies off with a metal spatula, but it really was minor.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for about ten minutes for a metal pan. (They took 4-5 minutes longer on my stone pans.)

Maren said she likes her pepperkakers thick, not thin, so I rolled plenty of both.

I prefer the thin, gingersnap quality of the thin cookies, but the thicker ones had a nice, slightly-chewy texture, and they were good, too.

Frost, if you desire, but I think these cookies are every bit as good plain. Enjoy!

Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

Wow. I've eaten some cookie dough in my day, but the cookie dough I ate tonight may well go down in history as the best I've ever eaten.

I'd never heard of Nutella cookies before reading a post from Jene (at The Original Bean), and I'm very glad I did, because these cookies are delicious! (raw or cooked!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature (I used salted.)
3/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of white sugar
1 cup of Nutella
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup of chocolate chips
1/2 cup of chopped hazelnuts (I added a whole cup because 1/2 cup didn't look like enough)

As you may have noticed, the recipe called for chocolate chips, of which I had none, so Mr.4444 kindly took out his trusty kitchen knife and wacked up some Bakers chocolate that I had.  Like Jene says, I finally found a use for the other end of my Pampered Chef measuring thingy...

First, cream the butter until its...well....creamy.

Then, add the vanilla, sugars, and Nutella. Mix well.

 

Add the vanilla and the eggs (one at a time, mixing 30 seconds between each egg).

 

Put the flour, baking soda, and cocoa....wait a minute! 

What flour?! Dang it--Sorry, I forgot to put the flour in the ingredient photo. Here you go!

The recipe said to sift the dry ingredients, so I did what any resourceful cook would do:

 

What?! Yes, it's time-consuming and a little annoying, but you can't argue with the results
(or the directions, which remind you that cocoa stays in chunks if you don't sift it):

 

Mix well.

 

Fold in the chocolate chips and the nuts.
The recipe calls for hazelnuts, but I made an executive decision on that one, too; 

since hazelnut coffee makes me gag, I went with walnuts.

Now here's where I muffed up the recipe and you should not. (Like my mom always said, "Do as I say, not as I do!"  Chill the dough for ten minutes or so. I didn't, and the result was kind of disasterous; so bad that I can't show you a pic (Just kidding--I did take a pic, but I lost it, so you'll have to use your imagination. Picture big, flat cookies all run into each other on the pan.)

If you haven't eaten all the dough yet, put it by rounded spoonsful (I used the big Pampered Chef cookie scoop) onto  parchment paper and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, allowing to cool a bit on the pan before transferring to a cooling rack.

While my cookies came out flat as pancakes and badly misshapen, I'm happy to report that they tasted fantastic and got rave reviews from Kendall and Mr.4444. They were all gone within two days.

I can't tell you how many this makes, since eating have the dough skewed my end result. (Jene said that they're too rich to eat too many, but you can see what a liar she is.) If you make them, let me know what you come up with, if you can resist...

Cutest Cookie Ever

Tell me this isn't the cutest homemade cookie you've ever seen, and I will call you a liar!My neighbor, Sandy, made these for Christmas/New Years, and I happily ate one New Year's Eve. (cellphone shot, sorry) I am not going to make them here, but I knew I had to pass this on.

*The base is an Oreo cookie dipped in white chocolate.
The "body" is made from a maraschino cherry dipped in chocolate; the "tail" is the cherry's stem.
*The "head" is made from a Hershey's Kiss.
*The ears are almond slivers
*The decoration cake decorating stuff, but I'm sure you could just put cookie decorations/sprinkles on the base to look just as cute, and use those tiny tubes you can buy to do the eyes/nose.

If I were you, I'd bookmark this for next year, because if you do, your dessert will be the hit of the party! :)

Confection Perfection? I think not.

My friend Terri Rainer, Published Author, sometimes likes to compare me to Martha Stewart. I laughed quite hard the first time I heard the comparison, because seriously, would Martha Stewart let her daughter sit on the kitchen island to frost sugar cookies?

Would her counter look like this?

Would she produce a sugar cookie gingerbread man who looked like this?

Would she be able to think "outside the box" and make a Halloween Christmas cookie, instead?

Or have compassion for the handicapped?

I think not.

Kendall and I made sugar cookies today from my mom's recipe, which I'm not going to put here, because it's pretty basic, and everyone likes their favorite kind anyway. However, I will share with you this wonderful recipe for Holiday Sugar Cookie Icing from my niece, Nicki, because it's different, and we liked it a lot. It's delicious, of course, but also beautifully shiny, if a little less-shiny when dry. [For the record, we quadrupled the recipe and had only enough for three dozen cookies (counting the 10 that we ate).

Holiday Sugar Cookie Icing
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tsp milk
2 tsp light corn syrup
1/4 tsp almond extract
assorted food coloring (we used neon!)

In a small bowl, stir sugar and milk until smooth (it will be kind of stiff; use a knife or metal spoon). Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. (This is not for weaklings; you'll need to put some muscle into it :) Divide into separate bowls and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Spread frosting with a knife or brush. The icing hardens fairly quickly (don't make it ahead of time) into a smooth, high-gloss finish (it creates a "Martha Stewart" sort of finish.)

I did not add that Martha Stewart part to the directions (I swear), but it's true. They look almost professional, no matter how sloppy you are (the shiny takes away from the sloppy.) Here are some of the results. See if you don't agree:

This one reminded me of a Teletubby, for some reason:

Here's a motley crew...

I have to admit, Martha might admire these three, which we noticed at the end were all color coordinated...So you see, I am not the Martha Stewart of the kitchen (and if there's still some doubt, read this) but we have a pretty good time around here anyway. Truth be told, I don't mind the "Martha Stewart of the Blogging World" title Terri gave me....

I just went to see if Martha Stewart has a blog, and she does, and it's nice. I was sucked in right away, dang it! Anyway, as I was saying, I might not be Martha Stewart in the kitchen, but I'm willing to give her a run for her money in the blog department. And I can make a pretty nice cookbook, too. If you liked this recipe, there are many more in my family's cookbook: Hungry for More...A Second Helping of Draeger Descendant Favorites...with a dash of Family History.