Thirty Marens agree: it wasn’t the party it should have been, but neither was the whole year. We made some cookies anyway.

It was just the family this year, but we celebrated Scandinavian baking regardless of the pandemic that raged outside here in Utah. We didn’t make the usual 7 kinds of cookies because I may be crazy but I’m not insane. Each kid chose a recipe to make and I assisted where needed and I made the sirupssnipper. Clockwise from top left: Swedish pepparkakor, Norwegian cardamom-laced krumkaker, spiced Danish brunkager (with candied ginger, orange and citron as well as pistachios and almonds), chocolate orange cookies, and peppery Norwegian sirupssnipper.

Most of these will have recipes available online (or in pdfs from other years on this blog) because they are all perennial favorites. The chocolate orange cookies were made from a recipe that used to be available online years ago, but is no longer. Here’s my version.

Chocolate Orange Cookies:
2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 ¼ cups butter, softened
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
2 eggs
8 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted
3 Tbsp orange zest
2 Tbsp orange juice
½ tsp orange oil
sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Cover baking sheets with baking mats or parchment.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Add eggs, orange zest, juice and oil. Mix well. Add the melted chocolate and blend well. Stir in the flour mixture until fully combined.

Roll generous tablespoon balls of dough in sugar, then place balls 1 ½ inches apart. Bake 13 minutes. Cool and store airtight. Fantastic any time of year.