Winter & Christmas

Pebernødder

Name: Pebernødder
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: Danish
Ingredients: 125 g soft butter; 125 g sugar; 1 dl cream; 250 g plain flour; ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda; 1 tsp cinnamon; ½ tsp ground ginger; ½ tsp ground cardamom; ¼ tsp freshly ground white pepper; ¼ tsp ground cloves

Pebernødder are the smallest and perhaps best-loved Danish Christmas cookies: crunchy little bites full of spice that you snack from the tin all through Advent – one after another.

A plate of small, golden-brown pebernødder — Photo: Jim Lindstrom / Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0

Preparation: 30 min
Cooking/baking time: 30 min
Servings: approx. 150 pieces
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

Dough

125 g soft butter
125 g sugar
1 dl cream
250 g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp freshly ground white pepper
¼ tsp ground cloves

Method

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy, then stir in the cream.
Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, add to the butter mixture and quickly knead into a smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for about 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 200 °C (conventional). Roll the dough in portions into finger-thick ropes and cut them into pieces of about 1 cm.
Place the pieces slightly apart on baking trays lined with baking paper – roll them into little balls if you like – and bake for 8–10 minutes until golden brown.
Leave to cool completely on a rack and store in an airtight tin. They stay crunchy for several weeks.

The story behind the dish

Pebernødder belong to the peberkager, a type of biscuit that can be traced back in Denmark to at least the late 15th century. “Pebre” once meant not just adding pepper but seasoning in general – peberkager were usually baked with ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, and pepper was rarely used.

Unlike other peberkager, pebernødder have always been linked to Christmas. The name probably entered Danish at the beginning of the 18th century from the Low German “Pfeffernüssen”. Baked without a raising agent in the residual heat of the bread oven, they were as hard as nuts.

To this day pebernødder are used as currency in many Christmas games and end up in the paper cones on the Christmas tree – just as the old song “Højt fra træets grønne top” describes.

Enjoy it at Dansk Cottage

A tin of pebernødder is the perfect companion for the ferry to Ærø – and usually lasts exactly until you arrive in Søby harbour.

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Ingredients

Dough

Method

The story behind the dish

Enjoy it at Dansk Cottage

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