Advent and the lead up to Christmas in Iceland is a time for baking, as it is elsewhere. Here though there is a very special tradition of baking smákökur, small cakes or cookies. Not just one type but as many as you possibly can. The question isn´t have you baked your smákökur this year yet, it´s how many types have you baked and which ones? I don´t know how many there are, perhaps as many recipes as there are for cookies around the world but I spent this December being offered new and exciting cookies at work and at Óli´s family home and thoroughly enjoyed this cultural adventure. Some of the cookies must have origins abroad and some feel very Icelandic, with cinnamon taste. Rúsínukökur are one of my favourites and piparkökur are one of Óli´s so I include them here. Have a look here for some others (in Icelandic).
Rúsínukökur
225g plain flour, 200g butter or margarine, 180g porridge oats, 220g chopped raisins (we minced then in a .. well.. of course, a mincer), 460g sugar, 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 eggs
Mix everything to together except the raisins. Add raisins to mix. Let the dough stand in the fridge for a day and bake the day after. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment (no need to butter baking sheet). Roll the dough into small balls about an inch (2.5 cm approx... in weight, 20g dough balls are big, 15 to 20g is fine) in diameter and place on baking sheet leaving a lot of space between them because they completely flatten out when cooked. Bake for 9 minutes at 200 degrees C.
Piparkökur500g plain flour, 500g soft dark brown sugar, 250g soft butter or margarine, 2 eggs, 5 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, 2 teaspoons of ginger, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ground cloves, half a teaspoon of pepper.
Mix everything together into a dough. It will feel grainy because of the sugar but that´s ok. If you can get caster sugar this would be better. Roll the dough into cylinder 3-4 cm in diameter and wrap in clingfilm. It needs to be in the fridge for at least a few hours so best to do this the day before. Slice the dough into 1 to 1.5cm slices. Bake for 9-11 minutes at 200 degrees C. We baked ours for 8.5 minutes and after that they got too dark underneath. Óli says this makes enough to fill a standard-sized Mum cookie box. This means little to me and Óli´s Mum is a busy and wonderful cook and has what appears to be an infinite number of cookie boxes of all sizes. Let´s say this makes plenty. Apparently though we are doubling the recipe next year.. 2 of everything.
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