Pebernødder

I chose pebernødder as my first recipe as it really reminds me of Denmark. We usually had pebernødder at Christmas. They are delicious biscuits with cinnamon and ginger in them. They also have pepper in them but don’t let that put you off — they are delicious. Pebernødder means ‘pepper nuts’, but even though they have pepper in them, there are no nuts. Maybe it’s because they are small and crunchy, or because they look a bit like nuts when they are cooked. Anyway, here is how to make them:

You will need:

• 125 grams of  butter
• 125 grams of sugar
• 1 egg
• 275 grams of flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 0.5 teaspoon of ground ginger
• 0.5 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 0.75 teaspoon of ground cardamom
• A pinch of white pepper

Whisk the sugar and butter together — this was hard to do because the butter was cold and lumpy, maybe if you melt your butter a bit first you might find it easier.

Add the egg and mix in the ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, baking soda and flour, and knead it all together with the sugar and butter.

After lots of kneading, it should look like this.

Roll the dough flat, then cut it into strips the thickness of a finger.

Then cut the strip into small pieces and roll them into small balls.

Put them on grease-proof paper on a baking tray and bake them at 200 degrees C for 10-12 minutes.

After about five minutes they start to smell really good.

When you take them out, you really want to eat them but they are super hot, so let them cool down for a bit first.

When they are cool, you can put them in a bowl and share them with your family and friends. Or just eat them all.

Now you have had a taste of Denmark, and I bet you can’t taste the pepper, can you?

(Edited on 16 May because in the recipe I wrote instant yeast instead of baking soda because I translated it wrong from Danish. It’s fixed now.)