Sukkerkringer- Danish cookies:
This in an very old Danish recipe for Sukkerkringler which I found in a book from 1922. In Jutland where I once lived ( its a part of Denmark) they have coffee breaks at all times of the day, all with the name of the time of day : “Formiddags kaffe” ( before noon coffee) “Eftermiddags kaffe” (afternoon coffee) “Aften kaffe” ( evening coffe) and always served with homebaked “Småkager”. Its a very nice ( but fattening) tradition and while living there I tasted these Sukkerkingler which the old grandmother made to perfection and never forgot them. I have looked for a good recipe ever since, and this one are ok, even though not as nice as the old grandmother of the Kjeldsen family. Her Sukkerkingler were very thin and extremely crisy and I dont think anyone else in Denmark can make them as she did.
“Småkager” are a variation of Danish cookies ( there are so many!) which are little cakes basicly baked with butter, sugar and flour. Today most pleople buy them, but before ( and in my mind mostly in Jutland;) everyone made them- big batches so they’d last for some time and for all the various coffee breaks.
Recipe ( taken from the old book from Carla Meyer):
500 gr flour1/3 teaspoon of hjortetaksalt ( which is a baking agent used only for biscuits and cookies)250 butter1 1/2 dl of fresh fullfat cream
Sugar to roll the kringler in
Pour the flour into a large bowl, cut the butter into pieces and mix it with the flour and cream loosely till a dough. Leave it for a few hours, then devide the dough into a lot of pieces and roll each and form into a pretzel form and press them into the bowl/plate of sugar so the sugar sticks onto the cookies.
Note: its important to mix the dough loosely so it will become crumbly and crispy when baked.
Place the kringler/pretzels on a baking tray and bake in the oven untill sligthly browned. The recipy is as random as me as it says: “on modarate heat untill the end where you turn the heat up until the sugar starts to caramelize”. I think I put the oven to 200 max.