Swedish Pepparkakor

Once again, Scandinavia hits a home run with baked goods and they anhilate any and all gingerbread recipes you may have liked with these pepperkake. In fact, I've been known to fill my checked luggage with tubs of these, from Iceland. They break. They shatter. They taste just as good.

Commonly eaten at Christmas, these spiced and aromatic cookies are just as easy to make as they are delicious to eat. You could easily buy packages of these at IKEA (they're cute little flower shapes) but I find the fresh flavor is just a million times better.

Ingredients
400 grams sugar
200 grams butter
1/3 cup light syrup (use Lyle's Golden Syrup or dark corn syrup)
3/5 cup heavy cream
4 teaspoons ginger
4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons black pepper (freshly ground is best, trust me)
4 teaspoons ground cloves
1 tablespoon baking soda
750 - 850 grams flour

In a large saucepan, add the sugar, butter, and syrup. Stir together and heat until melted. Set aside to cool.

Once the mixture has cooled down a bit, stir in the heavy cream. Add the spices, baking soda, and a little flour at a time to the mixture. You want a smooth and relatively firm dough, so you may not use all 850 grams.

Take the dough out of the pan and wrap in pastic wrap. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or even overnight.

After chilling, remove dough and allow to stand at room temperature to make rolling out a little bit easier.

Preheat your oven to 350°.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out pieces of the dough to a thickness of about .5 cm, or even less. Cut into desired shapes and place on a prepared baking sheet.

Bake in the center of the oven for about 10-12 minutes. I tried various baking times and found that 10 minutes was the perfect time for my oven. Cool on a wire rack.

You can decorate them with icing, but I honestly love mine without. My coworkers were dunking them in their tea and coffe and I....well....I eat them by the handfulls.

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