Christmas is the perfect time to stop and reflect on the people that make your life special, and why. That’s why, each week, we’re helping you to express gratitude in all its forms with our Gratitude Challenge. Choose an activity each day, or at random, and love letting the people in your life know how appreciated they are. This week we’re encouraging you to get baking with this tasty Swedish recipe…
In Sweden, one of the Christmas traditions we absolutely can’t miss is baking pepparkakor. These delicious gingerbread biscuits are perfect for sharing with family and friends to spread the Christmas cheer. During the busy festive season, it’s also so nice to slow down and make something by hand. To inspire you to embrace this fun tradition, we thought we’d share our tried and tested recipe.
Ingredients…
60g / ½ cup butter
75g / ½ cup soft light-brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
1 tbsp black treacle
2-4 tbsp milk
225g / 2 cups plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
What to do…
Start off by creaming the butter and the sugar, adding the other ingredients once this is pale and smooth. You can do this in an electric mixer or by hand. Once your mixture has come together as a dough, wrap this in cling wrap and leave in the fridge for an hour.
Once this is cooled, flour a work surface and roll out the dough to 3mm thick. Stamp out your shapes with our Cookie Cutters and place them on a lined baking tray. Gather any leftover dough and repeat. These biscuits work best when they’re cooked from chilled to be sure to place your dough in the fridge if it gets too warm from handling. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 and cook the biscuits for 12 minutes.
Once you’ve made your pepparkakor, you can easily turn these into beautiful gifts by decorating a clear jar with tags and stickers from our Paper Lover’s Book. Enjoy!
