Pepparkakor Recipe (Swedish Ginger Cookies) - Texanerin Baking (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between gingerbread and ginger cookies? ›

While molasses cookies and gingersnaps are rolled into dough balls and then baked, gingerbread is rolled flat then use cookie cutters to cut your desired shape. This Gingerbread Cookie recipe is foolproof and SO easy to make.

Unsalted butter adds flavor while shortening helps these hold their shape and the combination of the two gives the best texture. Salted butter will work in place of unsalted (skip the salt in the recipe), but the shortening is needed for the right texture on these cookies.

Why don't my molasses cookies crack? Molasses cookie dough won't have those signature cracks on top if the dough is too wet. The cracks happen when the surface of the dough dries up. Rolling in sugar really helps this because the sugar binds the moisture and dries out the dough.

Pepparkakor (or "pepper cookies") are Swedish cookies. Similar to gingersnaps, pepparkakor are thin, crisp, and spicy. They're commonly baked and sold in Scandinavian countries during the holiday season.

In Medieval England gingerbread meant preserved ginger. The hard cookies were a staple at Medieval fairs in England and on the continent. These became known as “gingerbread fairs” and the cookies called “fairings”.

Molasses and honey hardens gingerbread, but as the sugar absorbs moisture, it will get softer.” Cookbook author and ”Great American Baking Show” winner Vallery Lomas likes a gingerbread cookie that's packed with flavor. “I want to taste a lot of the spices ― especially ginger,” she said.

If you want to add additional flavor to the dish, lard is the right choice. Shortening is ideal for its neutral flavor, many professional bakers use it for icing.

However, shortening has fallen out of favor in the past few decades because of its high trans fat content. Now that trans fats are banned in the United States, however, shortenings have been reformulated to be free of these fats ( 1 ).

Cookies Made with Butter vs Shortening

The butter cookie provides better flavor and a crispier exterior with browning around edges and a chewy interior; the shortening cookie spreads less, holding its shape better while baking.

The Best Molasses Substitutes

Honey, dark corn syrup, and maple syrup can also be used to replace molasses in recipes.

Why can t you use blackstrap molasses in gingerbread cookies? ›

Using Molasses in Baking

It's dark, dense, and comparatively dry, thanks to the lower moisture content of blackstrap. It's also bitter and salty, so there's nothing to temper the heat of the ginger, making it all but inedible.

Doubling up on molasses softened the cookies significantly.

Molasses is also extremely dark in color, so this batch of cookies turned out to be a deep brown.

Lebkuchen (pronounced leyb-koo-kuh n) is a centuries-old German spiced treat traditionally baked during the winter holiday season. While lebkuchen is often translated to English as gingerbread, it's not exactly what most Americans envision when they think of gingerbread.

Both are sweetened with a mixture of sugar and honey/syrup, flavoured with warm spices and often use the same technique to make the dough. The difference, as you may have guessed from the name, is the primary flavour. Whilst pure gingerbread uses only ground ginger, pfeffernüsse use a full quintet of spices.

Lebkuchenherzen have become a staple in German celebrations, especially around Oktoberfest and Christmas time. They're typically decorated with intricate icing designs and lettering, including endearing or funny messages.

Originally, the term gingerbread referred to preserved ginger. It then referred to a confection made with honey and spices. Gingerbread is often used to translate the French term pain d'épices (literally "spice bread") or the German term Lebkuchen or Pfefferkuchen (pepperbread, literally: pepper cake).

Gingerbread Cookie Ingredients:

Spices: Ground cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Baking soda, salt, egg and vanilla extract: Because… cookies.

Spices give any gingerbread its delicious aroma and memorable taste. Ginger is the spice you will find in every gingerbread recipe. It comes from the knobby rhizome of a tropical plant and has a peppery zing and spicy scent.