Spiced Finnish Sugar Cookies

Prep Time : 10 + 10 Minutes | Cook Time : 15 Minutes | Total Time : 3 Hours | Difficulty : A Bit Fiddly

I may have gone a bit crazy getting some new cookbooks lately and one of my new favourites is Scandinavian Baking by Trine Hahnemann. I have bookmarked so many things and one of the first things I tried were these cookies. I swapped out the lemon for some spices because I was in a spicy mood and they came out fantastic! The flavour is reminiscent of Speculaas and the sugar coating really turns up the texture.

While I realise there are some of you out there that may not be thinking about Christmas yet…(when you’re rushing in December, I’ll be eating cookies, just sayin’) this is a great recipe for Christmas gifting. Or eating. You can always use coloured sanding sugars for the topping, though I love the understated sparkly look of the golden raw sugar crystals.

These cookies have a few steps, but each step is super easy, especially since we are using a food processor. Pop the dry ingredients straight into the food processor. Dice the butter and add it to the dry ingredients.

Pulse until it comes together and keep going until you have a smooth even dough. It will only take a minute or two.

Tip the dough out and bring it together with your hands. Form it into a thick rectangle. Like the disc that I made, but you know, square. It will help you a lot later on trust me!

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for two hours. Preheat the oven to 190C (375F) and line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Roll the dough out between two sheets of baking paper to get a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick (5-6mm). If the sides become rounded as you roll out just nudge them back in with the flat side of a spatula or your hands. If your chilled dough is already a rectangle there is much less coaxing needed here! Brush the top of the dough with a little milk or beaten egg. This will help the sugar coating to stick to the cookies.

Liberally coat the top with large crystal sugar. I like the use “coffee crystals” which are a very large grade of raw sugar. Press gently on top of the sugar to get it good and stuck to the cookies.

Cut rectangles about 1 inch by 2 inches. I have a metal ruler that I keep only for the kitchen and it’s really handy. It’s great any time you need to cut a straight edge and for these cookies I cut them by laying the ruler down at the edge of the dough and cutting along it then moving the ruler along so each row is one ruler-width across. Transfer the cookies to the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 15 minutes rotating the trays halfway though until the cookies are browning lightly on the bottom and corners. They shouldn’t spread, but if they are going out of shape there’s an easy fix. When you go to turn them, whip them out and use the flat of a knife or spatula to gently press the sides back neatly before popping the tray back in the oven! If you need to do this take the cookies out and shut the oven door while you do it so all that lovely heat stays in the oven!

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Pack these up beautifully a a gift or simply enjoy with a cup of tea.

Alright alright, we’ll get through Halloween first before I subject you to any more talk of Christmas. Let’s just enjoy some cookies!