On the twelfth day of Christmas, ¯¯ my true love gave to me ¯¯… Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor.

Well, folks, we did it! Twelve, time-treasured, LunaCafe Christmas cookies and twelve days of almost consecutive posting. It feels like a major achievement.

Baking and recording all of my favorite recipes for you has certainly made my Christmas. Thank you for returning week after week to share in the fun.

And now we are at the final cookie, the cookie that I purposely saved to complete this year’s baking extravaganza. Now that I think about it, I almost always save it for last, perhaps letting the anticipation keep my energy level and enthusiasm up through the weeks of baking.

This is Ellen’s cookie, a cookie I would have never known if not for her. She served it on my first visit to her home in Yakima, Washington. The cookies were arranged on an antique silver platter and were offered alongside an antique silver teapot filled with freshly brewed Darjeeling. The cookies were impossibly thin and crisp and aromatic with spices. By about the third cookie, the heat from the white pepper began to build in my mouth. I had never experienced heat in a cookie before. The cookies were so hot that tears began flowing down my face. But I couldn’t stop eating them.

So in a way, my long and wonderful relationship with Ellen began with these surprising and memorable cookies. For me, they will forever be entwined with memories of her gentle, generous, grateful, and joyful spirit. I know she would want me to share them. They are her gift to you this holiday season.

May the peace and blessing of this season of caring and sharing be with you and your loved ones.

Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor

This Swedish cookie is just enough different from all other Scandinavian “gingersnaps” to make it definitely special: delicate, spicy, and hot! My mom-in-law, Ellen Bradley, got this recipe from a Swedish neighbor who had been a professional baker.

For the Bradley bunch (4 brothers and one sister, each with kids of their own), Christmas without Pepparkakor would be no Christmas at all.Roll these cookies very thinly for best results and “watch watch” as Ellen says on her hand-written recipe card–they color (and burn) quickly.

1 cup unsalted butter, cool room temperature (2 cubes)

1½ cups sugar

1 egg, beaten, cool room temperature

2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

finely grated zest of 1 orange

½ cup fresh orange juice

3¾ cups flour

2-3 teaspoons white pepper (depending on how spicy-hot you want the cookies)

2 teaspoons cardamom

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

Decoration

clear sanding sugar or sprinkles, optional

1.Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly until pale and creamy, about 3 minutes.

2.Add the egg and beat until fluffy.

3.Add the dark corn syrup, orange zest, and orange rind. Combine well.

4.In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour together with white pepper, cardamom, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and salt.

5.Gradually add to the cookie batter and mix just to incorporate.

6.Divide the dough into 3 equal portions (about 14 ounces each) and flatten each portion to a ½-inch-thick disk on a sheet of plastic wrap. Seal the plastic wrap around each portion of the dough and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. (The sealed dough can be refrigerated for 2-3 days if necessary.)

7.With a flour-dusted, cloth-covered rolling pin, roll the dough out very thinly (1/8-inch or less) on a flour-dusted pastry cloth. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters.

8.Arrange cookies on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, decorate with clear sprinkles if desired, and bake at 375º for 6-8 minutes. Watch VERY CLOSELY in the final 2 minutes of baking to prevent cookies from over-browning.

9.Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks.

10.When completely cool, store in air-tight cookie tins. These cookies improve with age and will keep, if stored in a cool, dry place, for many weeks. You can also freeze them.

Makes about 6 dozen.

Come Back for More

Here is the LunaCafe Christmas 2008 Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies initial post and game plan with links to the following twelve cookies.

On the 1^st day of Christmas: Lily’s Swedish Vanilla Spritz

On the 2^nd day of Christmas: Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies

On the 3^rd day of Christmas: Decidedly Lemon Teacakes

On the 4^th day of Christmas: Once in a Chocolate-Spice Moon Cookies

On the 5^th day of Christmas: Peppermint Stick Shortbread

On the 6^th day of Christmas: Lemon-Lime Clove Sugar Cookies

On the 7^th day of Christmas: Toasted Almond Black Cherry Shortbread

On the 8^th day of Christmas: Green Tea and Rose Spritz

On the 9^th day of Christmas: Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies

On the 10^th day of Christmas: Lemon OrangePecan Thumbprint Cookies

On the 11^th day of Christmas: Candy Cane Butter Cookies

On the 12^th day of Christmas: Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor

…

On the eleventh day of Christmas, ¯¯ my true love gave to me ¯¯… Candy Cane Butter Cookies.

These candy-cane shaped cookies have gone through a lot of hemming, hawing, and testing over the years. I love the idea, but the final result is never quite perfection. Last year, the texture was not tender enough and the peppermint flavor not pronounced enough. They looked pretty, but well…

But this year, with a few minor alterations, I FINALLY have the absolute best candy cane cookie I have ever tasted. So what made the difference?

First, I cut back the flour a little. Now the two ropes of dough are soft enough to more easily adhere to each other. A lighter dough also enables the cookies to benefit from the rising action provided by the baking powder. The structure is more open and the baked cookies are now light, crisp, and tender–which is typically called melt-in-your mouth.

Second, I used King Arthur unbleached, all-purpose flour. King Arthur flours are of the highest quality and yield predictable results each time.

Third, I threw away a half can of baking powder that was nearing its expiration date and bought a new can. Baking powder loses its strength over time.

Fourth, I tripled the amount of peppermint I usually use, from 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon.

Fifth, I added broken candy canes to the finishing powdered sugar and processed the two to a powder. This really amps up the peppermint flavor.

So now, this jolly little cookie is as lovely to eat as it is to behold. What a good feeling when a little perseverance pays off!

Candy Cane Butter Cookies

These pretty cookies take a little patience and manual dexterity to shape properly, but the results are well worth the effort.

3 cups King Arthur unbleached, all-purpose flour

1 cup cornstarch

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cups unsalted butter, cool room temperature (4 cubes)

2½ cups powdered sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 tablespoon peppermint extract

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

red or green food coloring

Finishing

6 ounces candy canes, broken

1 cup powdered sugar

1.In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

2.Using a mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.

3.Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat just until smooth. Add the almond (or peppermint) and vanilla extracts and mixes well.

4.Add the flour mixture and blend just to incorporate.

5.Divide the dough in half (makes two 22-ounce portions) and add the food coloring to one portion. Divide each portion in half again, form each into a rough cylinder, about 2-inches in diameter, and wrap well with plastic wrap.

6.Chill for at least 2 hours; overnight is even better.

7.You should have four cylinders of dough in the refrigerator. Remove one red or green cylinder and one uncolored cylinder from the refrigerator and unwrap.

8.Cut each cylinder in half crosswise, and then rewrap and return half of each to the refrigerator.

9.Using a flour-dusted pastry cloth or silicon rolling sheet and continued very light dustings of flour as needed, with your hands, roll each portion of dough out to a long rope, ¾-inch in diameter and about 18 inches long. (Remember rolling clay in grade school art classes?)

10.Position a colored rope and an uncolored rope side-by-side, and then twist them around each other, compacting the dough as you proceed. The idea here is to get the two colors to twine around each other and stick together. Don’t begin rolling outward until the two halves of dough are adhered to each other. Pinch and push together as needed.

11.Using your finger tips only, gently begin to roll the dough outward, twisting it as you go (to twist, push forward with the fingertips of one hand and pull back with the fingertips of theother), until the rope is a little less than ½-inch in diameter. As the rope begins to get too long to handle easily, cut it in half and work with one 12-inch length at a time.

12.Cut the rope into 4-inch lengths, and place cookies on parchment paper-lined baking sheet, about ½-inch apart.

13.Curve one end of each cookie to form a candy cane shape.

14.Bake at 375? for about 12 minutes. Remove baking sheet from the oven.

15.After a minute or so, remove cookies from the baking sheet with a spatula and place on a wire rack to cool.

16.In the meanwhile, using a processor fitted with the steel blade and the pulse action, process the candy canes and powdered sugar to a fine powder. Fill a powdered sugar shaker with this powder (or put a large scoop of the powder mixture into a coarse, single-meshed sieve.

17.When cool, dust lightly the cookies with the powdered sugar mixture.

18.Store in layers separated with wax paper sheets in an airtight container.

Makes about 6-dozen medium cookies.

Come Back for More

Here is the LunaCafe Christmas 2008 Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies initial post and game plan with links to the following twelve cookies. Links can also be found in the right sidebar.

On the 1^st day of Christmas: Lily’s Swedish Vanilla Spritz

On the 2^nd day of Christmas: Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies

On the 3^rd day of Christmas: Decidedly Lemon Teacakes

On the 4^th day of Christmas: Once in a Chocolate-Spice Moon Cookies

On the 5^th day of Christmas: Peppermint Stick Shortbread

On the 6^th day of Christmas: Lemon-Lime Clove Sugar Cookies

On the 7^th day of Christmas: Toasted Almond Black Cherry Shortbread

On the 8^th day of Christmas: Green Tea and Rose Spritz

On the 9^th day of Christmas: Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies

On the 10^th day of Christmas: Lemon Orange Pecan Thumbprint Cookies

On the 11^th day of Christmas: Candy Cane Butter Cookies

On the 12^th day of Christmas: Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor

On the tenth day of Christmas, ¯¯ my true love gave to me ¯¯… Lemon Orange Pecan Thumbprint Cookies.

Oh no, only two cookies left to post and I am done with holiday cookie baking for this year. I hope you are having fun with your own baking and maybe even trying a few of these treasured recipes.

I love the way these cookies look on the holiday cookie platter–festive, colorful and oh so appealing. They have flavor and texture dimensions too with a tender, citrus-flavored cookie, toasted pecans, and chewy, bright-flavored maraschino cherry.

Lemon Orange Pecan Thumbprint Cookies

There are many versions of this particular cookie, but none quite so tender and rich as this one. The addition of orange and lemon juice ensures a tender dough and adds a flavor nuance that is very appealing.

4 cups cake flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

1½ cups unsalted butter, cool room temperature

1 cup extra-fine sugar

3 egg yolks

freshly grated zest of 1 large orange

freshly grated zest of 1 large lemon

3 tablespoons orange juice

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Finishing

4 egg whites, slightly beaten, in a small mixing bowl

12 ounces (3 cups) pecans, minced, in a small mixing bowl

16-ounce jar maraschino cherries in syrup, well drained and halved

1.In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour and salt.

2.In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together thoroughly.

3.Add the egg yolks and beat until fluffy.

4.Add the vanilla extract, orange juice, and lemon juice and combine.

5.Refrigerate the dough for at least two hours.

6.With your hands, roll rounded two teaspoons (#70 commercial scoop) of dough into balls. Roll each ball in the egg white, then in chopped pecans.

7.Arrange, 1-inch apart on a lightly greased, parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

8.Press a cherry half into the center of each cookie, flattening slightly.

9.Bake at 350° for 18-20 minutes, until the cookies are set and only slightly browning on the bottom.Cool on wire racks.

Makes about six dozen cookies.

Come Back for More

Here is the LunaCafe Christmas 2008 Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies initial post and game plan with links to the following twelve cookies. Links can also be found in the right sidebar.

On the 1^st day of Christmas: Lily’s Swedish Vanilla Spritz

On the 2^nd day of Christmas: Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies

On the 3^rd day of Christmas: Decidedly Lemon Teacakes

On the 4^th day of Christmas: Once in a Chocolate-Spice Moon Cookies

On the 5^th day of Christmas: Peppermint Stick Shortbread

On the 6^th day of Christmas: Lemon-Lime Clove Sugar Cookies

On the 7^th day of Christmas: Toasted Almond Black Cherry Shortbread

On the 8^th day of Christmas: Green Tea and Rose Spritz

On the 9^th day of Christmas: Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies

On the 10^th day of Christmas: Lemon OrangePecan Thumbprint Cookies

On the 11^th day of Christmas: Candy Cane Butter Cookies

On the 12^th day of Christmas: Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor

…

On the ninth day of Christmas, ¯¯ my true love gave to me ¯¯… Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies.

This is a delicious rolled cookie, tender,  buttery, and not too sweet—which is tinted and shaped to look like a pink poinsettia. No matter how many types of beautiful cookies festoon a holiday gathering, this one always causes the most buzz. It also disappears first.

Luckily, these cookies look more difficult to make than they actually are. The shaping technique is easy, although it does require just a bit of attention and patience. You will be well rewarded though for your efforts.

Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies

This recipe is super-sized, as are most of my holiday cookie recipes. I suggest shaping poinsettias out of the first rolling only, however, as the scraps may be a little too dry to shape easily. Thus you will not get quite as many poinsettia cookies here as you might expect. The scraps can be rolled a second time and cut with cookie cutters.

5 cups King Arthur all-purpose, unbleached flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cups unsalted butter, cool room temperature (15 minutes out of the refrigerator)

2½ cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 large eggs, lightly beaten, cool room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon almond extract

several drops of red food coloring

Decoration

clear sanding sugar or sprinkles

opal or silver shot

1.In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Reserve.

2.In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

3.Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, until well incorporated, and then beat in the extracts and food coloring.

4.Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix very briefly in short bursts, just until incorporated.

5.Remove the dough from the mixing bowl, divide into four equal portions, wrap in plastic wrap, flatten, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

6.On a flat countertop, lay out a pastry cloth and cover a heavy rolling pin with a rolling pin cover. Flour the pastry cloth and rolling pin cover lightly.

7.Working with one disk of dough at a time (keeping the others in the refrigerator), roll the dough out to a square shape with approximately 1/8-inch thickness.

8.Using a 2- to 2½-inch-wide plastic ruler, cut the dough into 2- to 2½-inch squares. Cover the rolled dough with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out as you work. These cookies take time to shape.

9.Remove one cookie square at a time from under the plastic wrap cover. Using any utensil with a ½-inch radius on one end, impress a ½-inch circle in the center of the cookie, without cutting through the cookie.

10.Using a small pizza cutter, pastry wheel, or sharp knife, cut from each corner to the edge of the center circle you just marked. Carefully fold every other cut point to the center of the cookie and press gently to adhere.

11.Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and arrange the cookies, one-by-one, immediately after shaping.

12.When the sheet is full, press 3 balls of silver or opal shot into the center of each cookie and then sprinkle heavily with clear or red sanding sugar.

13.Bake at 375° for 8-10 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven, let sit for 1 minute, and then remove with a thin spatula to a wire rack to cool.

14.When completely cool, pack in layers, separated by parchment paper, into a cookie tin.

Stored in an airtight container in a cool, dark location, the flavor and texture of these cookies will actually improve over 2-3 weeks. They may also be frozen for 2-3 months.

Makes about 5 dozen poinsettia cookies, plus 3 dozen “scrap” cookies.

Come Back for More

Here is the LunaCafe Christmas 2008 Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies initial post and game plan with links to the following twelve cookies. Links can also be found in the right sidebar.

On the 1^st day of Christmas: Lily’s Swedish Vanilla Spritz

On the 2^nd day of Christmas: Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies

On the 3^rd day of Christmas: Decidedly Lemon Teacakes

On the 4^th day of Christmas: Once in a Chocolate-Spice Moon Cookies

On the 5^th day of Christmas: Peppermint Stick Shortbread

On the 6^th day of Christmas: Lemon-Lime Clove Sugar Cookies

On the 7^th day of Christmas: Toasted Almond Black Cherry Shortbread

On the 8^th day of Christmas: Green Tea and Rose Spritz

On the 9^th day of Christmas: Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies

On the 10^th day of Christmas: Lemon OrangePecan Thumbprints

On the 11^th day of Christmas: Candy Cane Butter Cookies

On the 12^th day of Christmas: Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor

…