Norwegianne.net

Tag: christmas

  • French Christmas Sablés

    For my work computer, I tend to use Chocolate & Zucchini’s delicious-looking monthly desktop calendars. I get tons of nice comments on them from co-workers who stop by, and they’re absolutely droolworthy. I get in a better mood just by looking at them.

    When I noticed that the December wallpaper featured some pretty cookies, I immediately bookmarked the recipe – and vowed that I would be making them.

    Unfortunately, they rather fell a victim to the Norwegian butter shortage, as I only had 100 g of real butter left, and the recipe calls for  280 g. I substituted with margarine. (My local stores have been empty of real butter for about a month now.)

    I do think that affected the flavor of the cookie. Also, it wasn’t as sweet as I thought it would be, and at one point I considered using royal icing to decorate my stars, however, the flavor as it was grew on me.

    I also had some co-workers over, and served these, along with the rest of this year’s production of Christmas cookies.

    I am not wrong when I say that these disappeared the quickest from the serving plate, and I had added a good pile of them.

    I would definitely consider making this again, but I might halve the recipe as it yields quite a lot. Especially as I like to try out making loads of different cookies for Christmas.

  • Gingerbread House

    For a long time, we used the pre-made Gingerbread House-sets. My mother does not care for melting sugar to the point of caramel to glue gingerbread pieces together, and having a pre made set made the process easier. She just delegated it to us.

    My sisters and I have talked for a bit about making a gingerbread house from scratch, and to make it look like our cabin in the mountains.

    The Saltbox House pattern we started with doesn’t quite resemble the cabin, but moving the door around, and not having any windows on the largest piece of gingerbread helped.

    Due to an extreme amount of dough, we ended up making two gingerbread houses – so now one is residing with my parents and another one came home with me. Check out the pictures below.

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  • Norwegian Christmas Decoration: Christmas hearts

    The pleated Christmas hearts is a Christmas tree decoration staple in Denmark and Norway. They’re allegedly going back to Hans Christian Andersen, and are fairly easy to make. Since the look of it changes depending on which kind of paper you use and the look of it.

    Traditionally, red and white is used, but using wrapping paper or carton gives it a different look, and you can easily match it to any decoration scheme you’d like.

    Click here for instructions in English. (The illustrations are much better than any way I could explain it…)

    If you haven’t pleated these before, it might be easier to start with fewer strips on the hearts, but once you get the technique down, add more strips.

    It’s also possible to pleat patterns, but then you have to cut the parts even more carefully to ensure they fit together.

  • Third Sunday of Advent

    Lit the third Advent candle today – had some trouble lighting the oldest candle… but it worked itself out in the end.

  • Norwegian Christmas carol: Deilig er jorden


    Originally a Danish song, here in Norwegian and Maria Arredondo’s version

  • Jewish cakes

    In Norwegian these have a really un-PC name, Jødekaker (directly translated it means Jew cakes), but the name comes from the alleged fact that Sephardic jews brought the cookies with them when they immigrated to Norway. Anyone of Jewish descent know anything that resembles it?

    It’s fairly common in certain parts of Norway, whereas in other parts, it is relatively unknown. I’ve grown up with this. My co-workers in another part of Norway looked at me in horror last year when I listed this as one of the cookies I would be making for Christmas because of the name.

    It is probably the easiest cookie I’ve made for Christmas this year.

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  • Small gingerbread houses

    Small gingerbread houses

    Ooooh, this is nifty. Head over to not martha and check out the tiny gingerbread houses that go on the rim of mugs.

    Aren’t they adorable?

    I’m having coworkers over for Christmas cheer this evening, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t have time to make this… I would definitely try my hand at them.

     

  • Norwegian Christmas Carol: Glade Jul

    People will probably recognize the melody, as it is the Norwegian adaption of Stille Nacht, performed by Sissel Kyrkjebø & Odd Nordstoga.

  • Norwegian Christmas Baking: Kakemenn

    Quite literally translated as Cookie Men, these are essentially white sugar cookies, with a small change. Instead of baking powder or baking soda, the leavener is horn salt, or ammonium bicarbonate, which gives it a slight “kick” in flavor, and makes the kitchen smell a bit odd while they’re baking in the oven.

    It’s one of the easy Norwegian Christmas cookies, that is the most common to use with children. I suspect because it is fun to use the cookie cutters of different sizes and shapes, and to paint with food coloring before the cookies go into the oven to be baked, but that’s just the part that I haven’t outgrown… 🙂

    We like to find different shapes of cookie cutters, and paint to make things interesting. Men, women and hearts are the most traditional shapes.

    They also last for quite some time – some years we have Kakemenn until March. (If some are frozen, we have occasionally eaten them in August, which just feels plain wrong.)

    The recipe below is from Tine.

    The dough should be made the night before, so it has time to rest.

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