These Christmas Norwegian Cookies (Brune Pinner) are like taking a trip to Scandinavia with your tastebuds. These golden brown cookies are crispy and sweet, with notes of cinnamon, and are so easy to make.
If you’re looking for more European cookie recipes, try these: Welsh Cookies, and traditional Polish Kolacky.
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Why this Norwegian Christmas Cookies Recipe is a Keeper
They are a favorite Norwegian recipe around the holidays. and are part of the syv slags kaker, or “seven types of cookies,” tradition. We’re certain that after one bite, you’ll love these great Christmas cookies, too!
- 20 Minute Cookie: Brune Pinner take only 10 minutes of prep and 10 minutes to cook.
- Easy Ingredients: All of the ingredients can be found in the pantry or fridge. Rich men and poor men alike splurged to make these during the holidays.
- Family Friendly: They are easy and fun cookies that your family will love, and that everyone will want on their cookie platter.
- Special Occasion Worthy: These cookies are much easier to make than krumkaker, another Norwegian recipe, because these is no krumkake iron or other special equipment needed. Our family always made fattigmann (called poor man’s cookies), a type of fried dough.
What is the Norwegian Tradition of the Seven Cookies?
In 1822, prohibition on coffee was lifted in Sweden, but many people were poor and could not afford the ingredients to make baked goods to serve with it, as was customary. However, people adapted as coffee culture evolved, finding different ways to bake cookies or pastry to serve at a kafferep, or ladies’ coffee party.
The tradition of serving seven different kinds of cookies at gatherings soon became established. While some believe the number seven was chosen due to its religious significance, others believe it to be a matter of etiquette- if a hostess served less than seven varieties, she could be considered stingy, but if she served too many, she could be considered pretentious.
Ingredient Notes for Recipe for Norwegian Cookies
These Norwegian baking cookies are made with simple ingredients. However, a few, such as sanding sugar, may require a trip to the grocery store:
- Honey: In Norway, they use a Norwegian syrup called “mørk sirup,” but if you can not get that, then honey or maple syrup are a great replacement.
- Sanding Sugar: They use pearl sugar in Norway (This sugar, also called nib sugar, is a type of specialty sugar popular in Europe.)
See the recipe card below for a complete list of the ingredients with measurements.
Prep Ahead Suggestions for Norwegian Cookies
There are several ways you can prep ahead these festive cookies.
- Refrigerate the Dough: You can mix the dough and refrigerate it for up to 5 days. This allows the flavors to meld and makes the dough easier to handle.
- Freeze the Dough: For longer storage, shape the dough into logs, wrap them tightly, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before baking.
Pro Tip for Almond Flavor Shortbread
Before baking, chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. This chilling period helps the dough firm up, making it easier to shape and preventing the cookies from spreading too much in the oven. This results in cookies with a better shape and texture.
By chilling the dough, you’ll ensure that your Brune Pinner cookies come out perfectly every time!.
How to Make Traditional Norwegian Christmas Cookies
These Scandinavian Christmas cookies are quick and easy to make, and delicious to eat! Cut into strips and spiced with cinnamon, these flat cookies are quite delicious and are made without expensive ingredients.
These are the basic steps for making Scandinavian Cookies. Refer to the full, printable recipe card below for detailed instructions.
1. Prep and Cream the Unsalted Butter, Eggs and Sugar
First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then with an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar. Mix well until light and fluffy. Then add egg yolks, honey and vanilla, in a large bowl.
2. Mix the Dry and Form the Cookie Dough
In a separate bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour and baking powder, then mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until fully combined. Portion out the dough, then roll each portion into a 2-3 inch log. Flatten slightly with your hand or roll the cookies with a rolling pin. Cut into a diamond shape.
3. Bake the Brune Cookies
Brush with egg wash from the leftover egg whites and top with sanding sugar and ground almonds. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and bake in the oven until gold, then remove the cookies.
4. Cut and Finish
The trick is to allow them to cool slightly. While the cookies are still warm, use a knife to cut each log into small strips on an angle. Finally, set them on a rack to cool completely. You can serve them dusted with powdered sugar or with a side of whipped cream and berries.
How to Store and Freeze Brune Pinner
- Storing: After the cookies are baked and cooled, store in an airtight container.
- Freezing: You can freeze these shortbread cookies wrapped well or in an airtight container.
Variations and Substitutions for Sand Cookies
Like tradition chocolate chip cookies here, everyone has their own version of these Bune Pinner cookies.
- Sugar: Instead of sanding sugar, you can use pearl sugar or demarara sugar for these Norwegian sugar cookies. Or try a flavored sugar such as vanilla sugar.
- Nuts: Pistachios, hazelnuts, almonds or walnuts can also be great to top these festive Christmas cookies.
- Variation tip: Top with colored sugar, candy, or powdered sugar if you’d like or use cookie cutters.
Norwegian Butter Cookies Recipe FAQs and Reader Interactions
The kinds of cookies served in syv slags kaker vary among families, but some of the most popular traditional cookies include Krumkaker , Schackrutor, Serinakaker (Norwegian butter cookies that can be made like spritz cookies), Sandkaker (sand cookies), Goro, Rosettbakkels (rosette cookies), Smultringer (deep fried donuts) and Berlinerkranser.
Brune Pinner is Norwegian for “brown sticks.” While this may not sound appetizing, the name comes from the appearance of these popular Norwegian cookies – not their flavor!
Yes. Almond extract, for instance, is delicious in these cookies.. For an anise flavor, like a pizzelle, add a little anisette. They can also be great with cardamom. A perfect addition to your holiday baking.
Expert Tips for Making this Norwegian Dessert Recipe
Cookies are a huge part of Scandinavian holiday culture and many date back to the middle ages. In Norway and Sweden, the tradition of syv slags kaker (sju sorters kakor in Swedish) calls for hosts to serve their guests seven kinds of cookies, often around the holidays.
- Spices: You can add ginger, nutmeg or other spices to these Scandinavian cookies.
- Shapes: Feel free to cut these cookies into shapes, such as a Christmas trees, wreaths or diamonds, or scoop the dough with a cookie scoop.
- Don’t Overmix: Overmixing the dough can result in tough cookies. Mix just until the ingredients are combined.
- Roll Evenly: Roll the dough into evenly for consistent baking times.
- Watch the Baking Time: Keep a close eye on the cookies while they bake, as they can brown quickly.
Norwegian Cookies (Brune Pinner)
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Ingredients
- 14 tablespoons Unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ cup White sugar
- ½ cup Brown sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 tablespoon Molasses
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla
- 2 ½ cups Flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking soda
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1 cup Sanding sugar
- 1 cup Chopped almonds
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In an electric mixer, cream together butter, white sugar and brown sugar until fluffy.
- Separate egg, reserving the egg white. Add egg yolk, molasses and vanilla to the butter mixture and mix until combined.
- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and cinnamon.
- Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix until fully combined.
- Divide the dough into 6 even portions.
- Roll each portion into a log about 6-7 inches long and about 1/2 inch in diameter.
- Place 2 logs on a cookie sheet and flatten each to about 1/4 inch thickness. The cookies will spread when baking so leave plenty of room between them.
- Repeat with remaining dough.
- Whip egg white in a small bowl until broken up.
- Brush egg whites on to top of cookies.
- Sprinkle sanding sugar and chopped almonds on top.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes; cookies will spread out.
- Cool for 3-4 minutes; using a sharp knife, slice diagonally in 1/2 inch strips. Allow to cool completely.
Christina’s Notes
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- Spices: You can add ginger, nutmeg or other spices to these Scandinavian cookies.
- Shapes: Feel free to cut these cookies into shapes, such as a Christmas trees, wreaths or diamonds, or scoop the dough with a cookie scoop.
- Don’t Overmix: Overmixing the dough can result in tough cookies. Mix just until the ingredients are combined.
- Roll Evenly: Roll the dough into evenly for consistent baking times.
- Watch the Baking Time: Keep a close eye on the cookies while they bake, as they can brown quickly.
- Scale the recipe: Simply adjust the serving size in the recipe card and the ingredients will update automatically.
- Make your own All Purpose Seasoning: When a recipe calls for All Purpose Seasoning, you can use my homemade All Purpose Seasoning recipe or substitute salt and pepper to taste.
- Meat doneness: I always use a meat thermometer to test for doneness when cooking meat.
- Use unsalted butter: I use unsalted butter so I can control the salt level in the recipe.
- Preheat the oven: Unless otherwise noted, always preheat your oven before baking.
For more helpful information about this recipe, such as variations, substitutions and other pro-tips, check out the blog post.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided are estimates. It is recommended that you verify this information with your own trusted resource.
We love honest feedback, but to keep reviews helpful for everyone, we reserve the right to remove star ratings if it is clear the recipe has not been made, if the comment does not provide meaningful input, or if significant substitutions or alterations were made. Please note that ratings should reflect the original recipe as written to avoid confusing other readers.
This recipe is my personal adaption of an ethnic-inspired recipe. It is not intended to be an authentic recipe. I’ve recreated this recipe because I enjoy the flavors and I want to encourage my readers to expand their tastes and try new flavor combinations. The recipe, ingredients, and processes may have been adapted to make the recipe accessible to the average American. I have provided links to authentic versions of the recipe in the post above. I encourage you to visit these pages and learn more about the traditional version(s) of this recipe.
My family loved this!
can’t wait to try this recipe, thank you for sharing
I love exploring new recipes. These are fantastic! Thank you.
I am a Norwegian baker who is very interested in traditional Norwegian cakes and food, and I must say I’ve never seen Brune pinner look like this anywhere. It almost look like you made MANDELFLARN instead, as they have that shape. Brune pinner or Caramel sticks (kola kakor) as they’ve also called in Sweden is supposed to be a dough you flatten out to about 1/2-1 cm height (not unlike chocolate chips dough) and cut to long strips when they come out of the oven (and that’s why we call them sticks). When they are finished they hold their shape and they are not crisp but chewy.
You should check out Mandel flarn or Havregryns flarn, as they are also a very traditional Christmas cookie, and stupid easy to make. As nuts were imported and expensive in the old days, only rich families used almonds (mandel) , and those less rich used oatmeal (havre) instead. Many make them all year around as they are very crispy thin and elegant and serve them with homemade ice cream.
Christmas cakes and cookies has to be baked before Christmas and if you were a good housewife you had to bake 7 different ones. That was very very important. Again, those who had money to spend on sugar baked 15 different ones. In my family, seven different ones is baked every single year. Depending on where you come from in Norway, the cakes you bake, are different.
Back then, the use of eggs, white sugar and white flour was was left to be used on very special occasions as they were expensive. As there wasn’t any access to a lot of spices, many of the traditional cookies is what we today would call boring. Still, we love to bake them and every housewife or house father have often tweaked the recipe a little to make it more modern by adding chocolate, spices, orange peel etc.
It is always nice to try something new…thanks for sharing.
I just made these and they didn’t spread out much at all in baking for me either. Still delicious but they look like a normal cookie
I made them twice now. They didn’t spread much at all and the second time the dough was so dry that I didn’t use it all. I didn’t use all of the almond mixture either. I followed the recipe to the t and I have no idea what I did wrong. They took a while to cook also. So strange. Tasted great however!
That’s odd. I’ve never had that happen when I’ve made them.
How many cookie scoops per 9 x 13″ cookie sheet- how much do they spread?
Also it says 4 servings, how many cookies in each serving?
want to surprise my son’s girlfriend
They do spread. I would not do more than 6.
Question – what is sanding sugar? Have no clue and I really want to make these cookies.
Thanks –
Kathi
These cookies are soooo good! Sanding sugar is basically just clear sprinkles. Here’s a link so you can see what I mean (affiliate link) http://amzn.to/2h6V4HU