When you're making Christmas cookies this year, don't forget the Krumkaker

While many families are creating their favourite, traditional treats this holiday month, some are reaching way back to their roots to bake krumkaker. Krumkake is a Norwegian waffle cookie made of flour, butter, eggs, sugar and cream. Krumkaker are traditionally made in preparation...

When you're making Christmas cookies this year, don't forget the Krumkaker

While many families are creating their favourite, traditional treats this holiday month, some are reaching way back to their roots to bake krumkaker.

Krumkake is a Norwegian waffle cookie made of flour, butter, eggs, sugar and cream.

Krumkaker are traditionally made in preparation for Christmas, along with other cookies of Nordic origin.

Kamloops resident Jesse Ritcey spent the weekend baking krumkaker with his Grandma, something he has been doing since he was young. While hot, the dough is rolled into small cones around a form.

“She dug out her iron and we made our traditional cookies,” he said. “We do it every year. I always roll the cookies, you have to be quick and it burns your fingers.”

A special decorative two-sided iron griddle is traditionally used to bake the thin round cakes. Older irons are used by putting them over a stove, but modern electric irons offer the convenience of non-stick surfaces, automatic timing and multiple cakes per batch.

“I never tried the old style of iron but I imagine once you get electricity it is good to switch over,” Ritcey said. “This model is great because you can do one on each side."

Sometimes people stuff the krumkaker with whipped cream, but Ritcey said they are good on their own.

“The cardamom spice gives them a unique flavor,” he said. “It is like a tropical type of spice related to ginger that ended up in Norway during the spice trade. It is like having a tropical flavour at the North Pole.”

Ritcey’s aunt Ellen Helset Ferguson makes her krumkaker with an electric iron, but she keeps an older style iron as a family heirloom.

“My mom brought the old one from Norway when she and my dad went to visit his family in 1971,” she said. “My Dad was the only one who emigrated, so there are lots of family members in the Brumunddal area. He came to Canada in 1930.”

Ferguson said the recipe is simple.

Beat 3 eggs with 1/2 cup white sugar, she said. Add 6 Tbsp melted butter or margarine, 1/2 tsp ground cardamom, 2/3 cup white flour. Mix well. Each cookie takes one heaping teaspoon of dough.

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