Danish Christmas Cookies

 

As the countdown to Christmas 2023 winds down, I hope that you all are putting the finishing touches on your holiday preparations. Through the years I've shared some of our recipes for Christmas caramels, chocolates, and cookies. For this short blog, I thought I would share another cookie recipe that has become a Christmas season favorite over the past few years. 

In at least one of my past postings, I've shared that I'm half Danish. The only Danish recipe I have that has been handed down through the generations, though, is my paternal grandmother's recipe for aebelskivers. Through the years, I've picked up a couple of Danish recipe books with the larger goal of learning some new cooking skills and enjoying some new foods. A few years ago, I decided to add a Danish cookie to our repetoire of Christmas cookies. A recipe titled "Countess Cookies" caught my eye as one that seemed like one we would enjoy. After following the recipe as published, it was quickly evident that something wasn't entirely right, and I needed to make some modifications. I did some searching for "Countess Cookies" and "Danish Countess Cookies" on the Internet without any success in finding a recipe that was conceptually close to this one. 

Despite these challenges, I've managed to create a recipe that my family likes. The extent to which it is authentically Danish is probably debatable. Just the same, it's at least intended to be in the spirit of the Danish butter cookie. Here is our recipe along with a few pictures.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup ground oats
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• Additional ground oats
• Maraschino cherries cut in halves or quarters

Note regarding the oats: You can use either whole or quick oats. Remember, though that you are going to grind them up. I have found that the quick oats are a little easier to work with to get the desired coarse oat flower texture to stir into the cookie dough and then to roll the balls of cookie dough into before baking. I typically use our small countertop food processor to grind the oats.

Here are the instructions

1. Cream the butter, shortening, and brown sugar together

2. Mix in the egg and vanilla

3. Fold in the flour, ground oats, baking powder, and salt

4. Form the dough into small balls and roll them in the additional ground oats, allowing the ground oats to stick to the cookie dough.

5. Place the cookie dough on a baking sheet and lightly press a maraschino cherry portion on top of the cookie dough.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. The baking time will vary based on how big you make the cookies. Because these are a shortbread variant, the can burn rather quickly so you will want to watch for the edges to start to turn brown.

Here is what a pan of cookies looked like before I put them in the oven. I tried to make our cookies a little smaller this year. I was able to fit 21 cookies on a cookie sheet. I also used a silicone sheet on the bottom of the cookie sheet. Silicone sheets are the best.

Here is the outcome of our 2023 Christmas cookie baking day. The recipes for the molasses cookies on the right and the craisin puff cookies on the left can be found here. My family isn't entirely keen on raisins so, in recent years, we have switched the raisins in raisin puff cookies to craisins and now call them craisin puff cookies.

Whether you enjoy Christmas baking or not, wishing you all the best blessings of the season.