Scandinavian Cookies Silkekaker

This holiday season, I am exploring many baking recipes. Here is one that comes from Scandinavia. My husband translated the recipe from Danish, and I converted it from grams to cups.



1 cup (8 ounces) butter, softened
2/3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla extract together with an electrical mixer. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt, and baking powder. Combine the butter with flour and knead into dough.

Divide the dough in half and knead cocoa powder into one half. Roll four ropes about 12 inches long out of your dough (two white ones and two brown ones); make sure they are equally long.

Place one white and one brown ropes next to each other; put the remaining two on the top of them in a chessboard manner forming one long dough bar. Wrap it into plastic and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray or grease cookie sheets. Cut the dough into ¼ inch slices. Put them on the prepared cookie sheets and bake for 13-15 minutes. Keep an eye on your cookies towards the end of baking as they can burn very quickly.

Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before storing in an airtight container.

I'm linking to Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum.