What makes a good book even better? Snacks! What makes a good snack even better? Cookies! Today we are reading tales about some of the most interesting characters in Scandinavian folklore -viking gods and goddess, frost giants, eight-legged flying horses, and trolls - and we have a Danish sugar cookie named Brunekager to nibble on as we read.
Trolls and Norse Mythology are both by 1930s co-authors and married couple, Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire. They wrote and illustrated several books of Norwegian folk tales with beautiful wood-block sketches and lively retellings of classic Scandinavian stories of trolls, gods and goddesses, snow giants, and more. We have become very familiar with the characters in these stories lately with the popularity of the Avengers movies. Well, here are the stories of some of the original Avengers! Thor and his powerful hammer, the tricky Loki, the world of Asgard and its rainbow bridge, that all started here with Norse myths.
The book of trolls is just as entertaining. Trolls can be friendly and helpful or mean-spirited and greedy. We had fun baking some Danish sugar cookies and reading these lively, dramatic stories!
Brunekager
Adapted from The Culinary Arts Institute The Cookie Jar
ingredients:
1 cup butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp cardamom
- preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until fully combined and fluffy.
- Add the egg and beat well.
- Gradually add the flour and cardamom. Blend well.
- I like to scoop cookie dough with a basic ice cream scoop. It makes the cookies uniform but may be a bigger cookie than you prefer (I like big cookies). If you want a smaller cookie, roll the dough into balls with your hand.
- Press the dough with your hand or with the bottom of a drinking glass to slightly flatten it.
- Bake on a buttered cookie sheet until there are golden edges, around 10 minutes.
