Thin, crispy gingerbread biscuits called pepparkakor are a Swedish Christmas custom. Typically, they are shaped into hearts, flowers, or stars. Cooled cookies should be kept in sealed containers.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 50 mins |
| Servings: | 50 |
| Yield: | 100 cookies |
Ingredients
- 3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
Instructions
- Sift flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and cardamom into a large bowl.
- Beat butter, white sugar, and brown sugar together in a separate bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and corn syrup until smooth. Gradually stir in flour mixture until evenly blended. Divide dough into four equal portions and wrap tightly in plastic wrap; refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or overnight.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease baking sheets.
- Working with one disk at a time, and leaving the remaining disks in the refrigerator, unwrap chilled dough and place onto a lightly floured surface. Roll dough with a floured rolling pin to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Cut dough into desired shapes with cookie cutters, dipping the cutters into flour as needed so they don’t stick to the dough. Place cookies 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets.
- Bake in the preheated oven until set, about 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool. Repeat rolling, cutting, and baking the remaining cookies.
Reviews
I gave it four stars instead of five because of the sadistic advice to roll the ‘chilled dough’. I tried this with my marble rolling pin which promptly rolled off the hard-as-brick dough and smashed my fingers. NOTE: Let the dough sit for a bit at room temp. CHANGES: I used one cup of packed brown sugar and no white sugar. Also, used molasses instead of dark corn syrup. I rolled the dough rather thick, about 1/4 of an inch and cut the dough into small star shapes. Sprinkled these with a bit of sparkling, white sugar – pretty! CONCLUSION: Very tasty cookies! I will make these again and may use one and a half teaspoons of each spice for more ‘punch’.
Honestly been using this recipe for a few years now with some tweaking. I replace the corn syrup with molasses (1/2 cup) and 1 tsp of pepper. I don’t know why they call them pepper cookies and add no pepper. Anyway, it’s good for a base.
I had never made these before. My husband being Swedish always talked about his Mom making these. So, I decided to try. The dough was too dry so I added more corn syrup and a little water. We will see what the final product turns out like. They are in process now!
Got to the part where the flour is added…..checked recipe 3-4 times to see if I had messed up…my girlfriend finally saw in the reviews about adding the karo syrup…! Thank you, it saved the big bowl of powder that I had, and converted it into a dough…..and yes, I am male, so the frustration level was close to off the chart !!! Thanks again….rsbhunter
Yes, they take some work but I followed the recipe as written and had no trouble. Yes, refrigerating the dough overnight results in a pretty hard dough and it takes time and effort to work it out, but if you put in the effort you will get traditional Swedish cookies. One unmentioned benefit – your house will smell amazing when they are baking.
Tried it and is just a dry crumbly mess. Thought I screwed up so I tried again, just a bad recipe
I’m not home and wanted to make some pepparkakor. This recipe was terrible. I saw it through to the end hoping that the next day it would stick but no luck. What a waste 🙁 I’ll stick to my authentic recipe and may even post it.
I tracked down this recipe with the help from a family member that receives these as a gift from a friend every Christmas. the recipe I received was a little different- 3tsp. cinnamon, 3 tsp. ginger, 2 tsp. clove. The spice amounts are right on target. I used 2 tsp corn syrup, but after reading some of the comments, I think I might try more next time as it should make the dough easier to handle. I didn’t roll these out and use cutters, I rolled these into 4 “logs” and cut them, as my recipe directed me to do. I cut them as thin as possible with a thin knife, came out just right. I think this method is alot faster, but you do forgo the fun shapes.
I just made his and will make he following observations. One my dough was sandy and too dry. I added four more talespoons of corn syrup. That made all the difference. Two, the next observation is that I too would increasw the spices, Otherwise, i give these cookies an A.
This recipe was very similar to my family’s Svenska pepparkakor! I use Black strap molasses of course instead if corn syrup and this recipe dies not need to be chilled overnight! just a half hour… and working back in fourth in the hand before rolling out pn a floured surface! overall I liked it.
Good base recipe. Needed to add a few tbsp of ice water to get the dough to come together (was sandy). I doubled the spices, added a tsp of salt for balance, added 1/4 tsp of orange extract and subbed half the corn syrup for molasses. Still found them a little bland. Next time I’d roll them out even thinner than 1/8″ and fully sub the corn syrup for molasses. I’d also triple the spices.
Totally depenfs on the cook ..these cookies remind me of home…
I would give this an extra 1/2 star if it would let me. The cookies came out great. I agree the Syrup is off, I would use 8 ounces/1 cup at least. I kept adding until it all blended together. I would also add more spice next time for myself. I will make them again.
I followed directions too and the dough was too Sandy. I’m Swedish and this is the first time I made these here in the US. I added another 3 or 4 tbls of corn syrup and the dough became smooth and easy to maneuver, but not too soft. Just like it should be.
omit the syrup replace with molasses
Made the recipe to the letter multiple times. Family and coworkers LOVE it (so do I!). Some prefer the harder crunchy version, some prefer the softer version, varies depending on dough thickness and cooking time. Dough is ‘sandy’ and tough to stick together before refrigeration and can crumble at first after you take it out of the fridge, but eventually it comes together. I’ve found that refrigerating it briefly is much easier than for long periods of time – 30 min at most – enough to cool it off and make it less sticky but not enough to harden it up and make it difficult to roll out. Will be making this recipe again and again. PS makes LOTS of cookies – I wouldn’t be surprised if the estimate of 100 cookies was right on target.
Just tried this recipe a couple of days ago and loved it! The best I’ve ever tried and it’s proof to me that homemade is far better than any store bought version…yes, and in some cases, even small bakery batches. I made a few variations and it looks and tastes like the experimentation went well. First, I used used butter which I believe is much better than margarine. It adds taste and texture that you can tell lacks in store bought types. 2nd, I substituted 3/4 cup of white flour for whole wheat unbleached flour. I think this allowed me to reduce refrigeration time to 15-20 min. Not to mention, it added a bit of a healthiness to the recipe. Also, I used 1 cup of sucanat , 1 cup of natural (unbleached) granulated sugar and brown rice syrup to substitute the sugar items in the recipe. The finished product is crispy, pleasantly spiced, tasty, buttery, and fantastic compliment with tea, Indian Chai, milk, coffee…. You name it! For the most part a lot of these ingredients were substituted because I don’t normally use them in my baking. The results came out so well, I think I will continue makIng them this way. Well, happy experimentation and happy baking!
This recipy tasted just like the ready made Pappakakor i tasted in Stockholm. I am glad I can bake it home now
This recipe is great – very close to my family’s recipe for these cookies. I would suggest using margarine instead of butter – the dough rolls out much more easily especially when the dough is cold. That way you don’t need to add all the extra corn syrup. I also like to double the spices, especially the cardamom. You can sprinkle the cookies with colored sugar prior to baking to make them more festive (my stepson loves to decorate them with colored sugar).
I followed this recipe to the letter and had no problems with it. The dough is super hard out of the fridge but I worked it a bit with my hands then rolled it out just fine. A lot of flour helped in making it roll out super thin and I didn’t have any problems with crumbling until it started to warm up. They were exactly the cookies I was looking for. I only gave it 4 stars because if I make it again, I will definately double the spices. I like my spice cookies to be really strong and these are pretty mild as is.
5 stars for flavor, but 1 star for difficulty. As other reviewers noted, it was really difficult to roll out since it was sandy in texture. I could roll it with great effort (after it was at room temp – no way right out of the refrigerator) and could only get 1 or 2 cookies cut out of it because the rest was so crumbly. I tried adding more corn syrup after re-reading the reviews which did help the dough stick together better, however, it was extremely hard to mix it in! My arms were exhausted and it was too much for my Kitchen Aid mixer!