I have been making these as long as I can remember. My mom and I made them growing up, and my grandma made them too. I believe someone told me my grandma originally got the recipe for these from the newspaper. In any case, if you know my in real life, you have probably gotten these from me before. 🙂
These cookies are so simple. Just butter, cake flour, powdered sugar, cornstarch and almond extract for the dough. It is super important for these cookies that your butter is room temp and softened when you mix up the dough, and that you let the dough sit overnight in the fridge before you bake them. The butter needs to be completely evenly mixed with the other ingredients and then it needs time to rechill. This cookie dough is so smooth, I love the texture of it.
The icing is also super simple. Just powdered sugar, lemon juice and a little water if needed to thin it out. I usually make 2-3 batches of these each Christmas.
Norwegian Christmas Cookies
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 1 cup butter fully softened
- 1/3 cup powdered sugar
- 3/4 cup cornstarch
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1/8 tsp almond extract
For the icing:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- lemon juice enough to get thin icing
Instructions
- Cream the butter and almond extract in your stand mixer until light and fluffy. Whisk the other ingredients in a bowl until well mixed then add to the mixer and blend on low until the dough comes together. Turn up the mixer for just a few seconds to make sure everything is really well combined.
- Scrape dough into plastic wrap and form a disc. Wrap well with plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight.
- Heat the oven to 350. Using a small (tsp or tsp and a half) sized cookie scoop, drop balls of dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, leaving space between them. If the shapes are rough, roll them quickly in your palms to even out, but try not to warm the dough up.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until just starting to turn slightly brown on the bottoms.
- Remove from oven and allow fully cool before icing. Place cookies on a cooling rack over foil to catch the icing drips, and spoon icing over the top of them.