Sandbakelse Cookies

Sandbakelse and their tins.

      Sandbakelse are sugar cookies from the nineteenth century Norway. The dough is pressed into tins, and then baked in an oven. Sandbakelse or 'Sandbakkels' (meaning sand tarts) or 'Sandkaker' are a Norwegian sugar cookie. They are a Christmas tradition in many families. 

      Sandbakelse are made of flour, butter, eggs, sugar, and almond extract - possibly with vanilla or cardamom. After the dough is mixed and cooled, it is pressed into fluted tins. After ten minutes in the oven, popping the cookies out of the hot tins is best left to adults. 

      In 1845 a recipe for sandbakelse appeared in a Norwegian cookbook, but they were not widespread until later in the 19th century. They became popular later than the similar krumkake because sandbakelse required fine flour, which wasn't yet widely available. Emigrants took their tins and recipes west across the sea, where sandbakelse remain an "old-country" Christmas tradition for many Norwegian-Americans.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of soft butter
• 3/4 cup of white sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup blanched almonds finely chopped
• 4 unblanched almonds finely chopped

Procedure: Cream the butter, sugar and egg white together and then stir in the remaining ingredients. Chill the dough for a few hours. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pull the dough apart in chunks and press it firmly into the sandbakelse tins. Do not unmold the cookies. This cookie dough must bake inside the tins for approximately 12 minutes. Remove the molded cookies from a cookie sheet and let the molds cool. Tap the molds against a wooden bread board to unmold the sandbakelse.