Danish Pebernødder

https://www.valdemarsro.dk/pebernoedder/

INGREDIENTS

• 125g butter, room temperature
• 125g sugar
• 50 ml whipping cream
• 250 g wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon ginger, finely grated
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon white pepper, freshly ground
• ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
• ½ organic orange, 1 teaspoon finely grated zest from this

DIRECTIONS

1. Quickly beat the butter and sugar together and then stir in the whipping cream.

2. Mix the dry ingredients and finely grated orange peel together in a separate bowl and stir this into the bowl with the wet ingredients.

3. Knead the dough briefly, just until the peppernut dough is firm and easy to shape and assemble.

4. Roll the dough into long sausages and cut the peppercorns into appropriate sizes, about 1 xl cm.

5. Roll the peppercorns into small round balls and place them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper, spacing them slightly apart.

6. Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for about 7-10 minutes until they are just slightly golden around the edges.

7. Let them cool on a rack.

The recipe below had the right shaping techniques, but time/temp seemed way off.

https://skandibaking.com/pebernodder-peppernut-cookies/

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp white pepper
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 8 tbsp unsalted butter, cold
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup milk or water

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C).

2. Mix together your flour, cinnamon, white pepper, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking powder.

3. Cube your cold butter and start to crumble together with the flour (like you would with pie dough). You can also do this in a food processor or using a pastry cutter!

4. Once your mixture starts to resemble sand, you are ready for the next step.

5. Add the brown sugar, breaking up the big clumps and incorporating it evenly into the mixture.

6. Add in the milk/water and start kneading by hand until just combined.

7. Note: it may seem very dry and crumbly to start. If you absolutely need to, you can add a little bit more milk or water for it to come together! By the end it should come together into one cohesive dough.

8. Break off a large piece of the dough (probably about a quarter of the dough) and start to roll into a log, about 1cm or half an inch wide.

9. Cut your log into small pieces, about 1-1.5cm in size. It helps to pinch the end of the log between the fingertips of your thumb and index finger and then cut at the end, then keep repeating to help keep the cuts even by using your fingers to measure.

10. Start rolling your pieces into little balls. The key here is to try to keep all of them a consistent size! It can be tricky to do so in the beginning.

11. Once your balls are rolled, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet with a bit of space between. They will puff up slightly.

12. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown around the edges and crunchy! Place on a cooling rack to fully cool down.

13. Repeat with the remaining dough until you've used it all! You can bake multiple baking sheets at once if you like, but we find that in the time it takes for one batch to bake, you'll only just have prepared the next baking sheet for the oven anyway.

14. Once cooled down, store in a cookie tin. Enjoy throughout the holiday season!