To me, nothing tastes more like Christmas than Danish Christmas Cookies / Brunkager – a crisp, spiced cookie – and Glögg – a mulled hot wine.
Here are my family’s recipes 🙂
Danish Christmas Cookies / Brunkager
7 ounces butter
7 ounces sugar
1/2 cup sirup
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
12.5 ounces all-purpose flour or more
1 tsp baking soda
3.5 ounces chopped almond slivers (optional)
1.8 ounces grated organic orange peel
How you do it:
Mix butter, sugar, sirup and spices well.
In a separate bowl mix the flour and baking soda well. Then mix this into the first mixture. Knead the dough together with almonds and orange peel. Add more flour if needed.
Divide the dough into 2-3 equally big parts. Roll and shape them so you have 2-3 fat rolls. Then you wrap each of them in plastic foil and store them in the fridge overnight – or longer.
Cut the rolls into 3-4 millimeter thick slices which you place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Leave at least 1/2 an inch space between the cookies.
Bake them on 390 degrees Fahrenheit for 5-6 minutes till they are lightly golden brown around the edges.
The Scandinavian Christmas gnomes/”nisser” protects the Royal Copenhagen serving tray with Christmas treats! Marzipan and nougat rolls on top, Danish Brown Cookies, chocolate and raisin cookies on the middle level and gingerbread cookies on the bottom.
Danish Mulled Wine / Glögg
Ingredients:
2-3 cinnamon sticks
4-5 whole cloves
Coarsely grated orange peel from 1 orange
Juice from 1 orange
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
How you do it:
Boil spices, orange peel, orange juice, sugar and water for 10 minutes.
Pour through a strainer. Put the liquid extract in a medium sized pot and heat it up with 1 bottle of table-quality red wine, almond slivers and raisins/craisins. You can add a small splash or two of schnapps, cognac or rum if you like. Do not let it boil!
Serve hot in glasses with a spoon and include some of the almond slivers and raisins in each glass.
Glögg/mulled wine and Brunkager/Danish Christmas Cookies on a Royal Copenhagen plate.
Happy as a Dane 
Hej,
I noticed your post on FB via the “Eat Smart in Denmark” blog. A reader asked if you mean corn sirup when you wrote “sirup” in the Brunkager (Brown cookies) recipe. But, as a Dane, I know that you must mean molasses, not corn sirup and not pancake sirup, but the thick, dark brown stuff that gives the brown cookies a lot of their characteristic taste – i.e., molasses (= sirup på dansk).
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Hi:) I’m sorry for my late reply. Hopefully it is not too late. I would not use molasses. I just used the regular corn sirup. Maple sirup would make it extra delicious. Some stores have a sirup based on real sugar which would be just like the Danish sirup. But now I am getting a little curious about using molasses… I bet that would be yummy too. Let me know if your reader tried it. New Years greetings to you!
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Thank you for sharing! Always wanted a recipe for glög, this seems simple enough!
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That’s great to hear! Yes I was surprised about how easy it actually is. And you can also add other spices to the extract, such as whole cardamom, star anise or a little whole black pepper would also be delicious!
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