Swedish Baking

Baking before Christmas is a tradition that followed by almost every house in Sweden.

One of the weekends in December a family spends entire afternoon baking different traditional pastries, cakes, cookies and other sweet goodies.

Gingerbread cookies are a must in every family. Unlike Christmas gingerbread men in English-speaking countries, Swedish gingerbread cookies are usually made in such shapes as moose, pig, Dala horses, special Swedish horses, and hearts. Those are made very thin and it takes only 7 minutes in the oven for them to become crispy.

Many families take on the challenge and guild their own gingerbread house. First they made a drawing, then the dough is cut according to the measurements of the drawing.

After the walls and the roofs are baked, they are glued to one another with sweet syrup.

And then comes the last touch – colorful decoration with sugar cream and candies. But we decided to leave our gingerbread skyscraper just as it is :)

Another pastry that no Swedish Christmas can do without is lussebullar – rolled saffron breads with raisins.

It is baked of regular yeast dough with a lot of saffron which gives them this yellow color and a fantastic Christmas taste!

And of course, no baking can be done without drinking glögg, warm spiced wine, drunk in small glasses with raisins and almonds at the bottom. As you can see, there is even a special gadget with candle to keep the wine warm all the time

Baking is incredibly important for creating a Christmas atmosphere at home. And together with special decorations is makes Christmas absolutely magical!


Story by Irene (TomBjorndesigns)