Danish Christmas cookies recipes – The best cookies from Denmark

Prepare wet ingredients

• Melt 125g or ½ cup of butter, 125g or ½ cup of packed brown sugar and 70g or ⅕ cup of corn or golden syrup.
• I use my microwave on low.

Prepare dry ingredients

• I the meantime add the following ingredients to a bowl: 250g or 2 cups of cake flour, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of ground all-spice, 1 teaspoon of powdered ginger, ½ teaspoon of ground cloves, and 75g or ½ cup roughly chopped almonds.
• Then add 25g candied cedrat peel.
• Mix it all up thoroughly.

Prepare leavener

• Then mix 1 teaspoon of potassium bicarbonate into 1 tablespoon of water.
• Grab the butter mixture from the microwave and mix it up. It shouldn’t be too warm at this point. Add the mixed levening.

Prepare dough

• Add the entire butter mixture to the flour mixture. Work the mixture together using a spatula.
• Then when it becomes too dry, dump it out on the kitchen counter and knead it until you have a smooth, somewhat sticky dough.
• Roll it into a log about the size of cookies you want. Then add it to a parchment paper and roll to cover it.
• Put the dough in the fridge for at least four hours.

Bake cookies

• When you are ready to bake, heat your oven to 175°C/350°F.
• Grab a parchment-lined baking sheet, a cutting board, and a sharp knife.
• Cut the dough into thin slices and put them on the baking sheet.
• When the oven is hot, add the sheet and bake for about 6 minutes.
• The cookies shouldn’t brown, but that can be hard to tell. Take them out and put them on a wire rack.
• Continue with the rest of the dough until you’ve baked them all.
• The cookies are soft when they come right out of the oven and won’t be crispy until they’ve cooled off.

Prepare lemon

• Zest 1 lemon and chop it finely.
• Squeeze a ½ lemon into a small bowl.

Prepare butter mixture

• To a small bowl add: 75g or a ⅓ cup room temperature butter, ¼ teaspoon vanilla powder, the lemon zest, 3 tablespoons whipping cream, and 90g or ½ cup sugar
• Whip it up. After it’s pretty well whipped together, add 1 egg and mix it in.

Prepare leavener

• Then mix up one tablespoon of lemon juice with ammonium bicarbonate. It should foam.
• Add the leavening to the butter mixture. Mix it up.

Make dough

• To a small mixing bowl add: 275g or 2 cups cake flour, ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom, and ¼ teaspoon table salt. Mix it up.
• Then add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Mix with a spatula until it comes together.
• Dump it on the counter and knead it until you have a cohesive dough.
• Put it in a ziplock bag and let it rest in the fridge for about an hour.

Shape klejner

• After resting, grab the dough from the fridge and roll it out into a rectangle.
• It should be pretty thin—about 2 mm, about ⅛ inch.
• Then cut them into rhombus shapes with a pastry wheel cutter. They should be about 3 cm by 8 cm and about 1 inch by 3 inches. Cut a hole in the middle of each rhombus.
• Pick one up and stretch the hole a little, then put one end through the hole and tug on it, so it becomes this little knot.
• Put them all on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Cook klejner

• After they are all shaped, heat a pot of 1 liter or 4 cups of neutral-tasting oil. It should be 180°C/360°F. I used rapeseed, but you can use peanut, grapeseed, or canola.
• Add a couple of klejner at a time, and let them cook on both sides until they are golden brown.
• I can fit six klejner at a time in my pot and stagger the timing, so I have some that are halfway done when I add the next batch.
• Let them cool on a wire rack with kitchen paper underneath.
• They are great when they are still warm but good for a few days after making them.

• Heat your oven to 175°C/350°F.
• Cut the vanilla pod in half and scrape out the seeds.
• Add some sugar and mash it into the seeds to separate them.
• To a small mixing bowl add: the vanilla sugar, 80g or ½ cup sugar, 75g or ⅘ cup almond flour. Mix it up.
• Add 100g or ½ cup butter and mash it into the mixture with a spatula.
• When the batter comes together, add an egg. Mix the egg into the dough.
• When it’s mixed in add 100g or ⅘ cup cake flour. Mix until the flour has been dispersed.

Pipe vanilla wreaths

• Then grab a piping bag and fit a star-shaped piping nozzle.
• Pipe wreaths out onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake vanilla wreaths

• Add the sheet to the oven and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. The wreaths should be just golden brown on the edges.
• Grab them and let them cool completely on a wire rack.
• They won’t be crispy until they are cooled down completely.