In the 1800s, when cookie baking reached its peak in Scandinavia, there ensued a competition among households in which the host of a gathering would try to produce more types of cookies than that served at the previous party. The competition grew so extreme that eventually everyone tired of it and settled on a reasonable number: seven.
To this day, a coffee table must include seven kinds of cookies or small cakes. And so, my contribution to the Christmas smörgåsbord this year were those seven batches of cookies. Running clockwise, starting with the hazelnut biscotti, are jam cookies (made with ground almonds, egg whites and cloudberry jam), pepparkakor (gingersnaps), spritz (almond-flavored butter cookies), sesame cookies (made with tahini and whole-wheat flour), flourless chocolate cookies, and pretzel-shaped cardamom butter cookies.
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They look beautiful. I’ll take some gingersnaps and flourless chocolate cookies, please.
ReplyDeleteMichelle
...cloudberry jam???...
ReplyDeleteEmily
It's what was in the fridge.
ReplyDeleteLittle hearts and cloudberry jam. Ms. Erickson, you rocked the dessert end of the board.
ReplyDeleteMy Finnish instructor fed me pipari tonight, which must be the same as the pepparkakor. Hauska joulua ja onnellisti uuta vuotta!
ReplyDeleteIn 991AD, Olaf Tryggvason totally kicked Earl Byrhtnoth's butt at the Battle of Maldon, forcing King Aethelred the Unready to pay a tribute of 10,000 Roman pounds of silver to the Vikings. And now, a thousand years later, you're making Scandinavian cookies with TAHINI?! What's up with that?
ReplyDeleteOK, I never claimed all the cookies were Scandinavian. Anyway, if the cookies were made with only ingredients that came from Arctic lands, we'd be eating nothing but rye rusks.
ReplyDelete