Recipes

Name of Cookie: Grandma Lund’s Pepparkakor

Name of Finalist: Lindsey Lund

Story:

Sweet. Spicy. Crisp and thin, yet melt-in-your-mouth buttery. Swedish Pepparkakor are my grandmother’s most beloved holiday cookies. She makes hundreds of them each Christmas using itty bitty cookie cutters shaped like stars, reindeer and gingerbread folk. When I was in college, she showed me how to make the dough using real orange zest, then how to roll it between pieces of wax paper until it is almost as thin as paper itself. Every Christmas Eve, three generations of the Lund family crowd into my grandparents’ cozy home to eat and laugh. After dinner and gift giving, we devour the pepparkakor with candy cane ice cream. These cookies simply taste and smell like the holidays. They are delicately zesty, and they really do melt in your mouth. You can attempt to eat just one, but it won’t work! Welcome to one of my family’s most cherished holiday traditions.

Recipe: Grandma Lund’s Pepparkakor

½ lb. butter

1 ½ C. Sugar

1 T. corn syrup

2 t. baking soda

1 egg

3 ½ C. Flour

1 T. cinnamon

1 T. ginger

1 T. cloves

juice and zest of one orange

Sift flour with soda and spices

Cream butter with sugar

Add syrup and egg and orange to creamed mixture

Add dry ingredients, mix until blended

Chill dough. Roll with flour between plastic wrap or wax paper until very thin. Cut into shapes.

Bake at 425 until barely brown (about 5 minutes)

Bio:

A Seattleite via Madison, Wisconsin, Lindsey saw the contest while scanning the ART Restaurant website. Being in the holiday mood, she decided to enter, wanting to share one of her family holiday traditions with others. By day, Lindsey manages communications for The Compass Center, a local homeless services provider. She spends most of her free time sewing, knitting, biking, and cooking with friends. A much anticipated trip home for Christmas (and her Grandma’s cookies) awaits her in just a few weeks!