Components
Cream cheese
Gingerbread cookies
Ingredients 4 servings
800 g (28.22 oz) neutral yogurt
6 g (0.21 oz) salt
Gingerbread cookies
100 g (3.53 oz) brown sugar
30 g (1.06 oz) water
200 g (7.05 oz) butter, cold
300 g (10.58 oz) wheat flour
3 g (0.11 oz) ginger powder
3 g (0.11 oz) clove powder
3 g (0.11 oz) cinnamon powder
Instructions
Cream cheese
Slowly pour the yogurt into a fine mesh sieve and place over a bowl in the refrigerator.
Refrigerate for two days.
Transfer the cheese from the sieve to a bowl and add some of the salt. Taste and add more salt if needed.
Gingerbread cookies
Mix the spices, sugar, flour and butter in a food processor until it resembles a grainy flour.
Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the water. Work quickly with your hands just to combine the Components and to form a cohesive ball. Add more water if needed. Do not overwork the dough!
Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180° C (356 degrees Fahrenheit)
Roll the dough 5 mm thick between two baking papers.
Take off the top paper and bake the whole cookie dough.
Bake the cookie for 25 minutes or until browned around the edges.
Slip the big cookie, with the baking paper, over onto a cool baking tray.
Immediately, cut out rounds and squares from the baked cookie while it is still hot.
Do not separate the cookies yet!
When the dough is cool and crisp, separate the cookies.
Assembly
Place one rectangle of gingerbread on a plate. Fill a piping bag with the cream cheese.
Pipe a couple of rosettes on the rectangle. Add another layer of gingerbread onto the cream cheese and repeat so that you have 3 layers of gingerbread.
Pipe mini rosettes on the round cookies.
Pipe a rosette on the top layer and put one round cookie on it.
Fun facts about Swedish gingerbread cookies
Imagine the delicious smell of gingerbread that fills your kitchen with a feeling of Christmas. This recipe for “Swedish pepparkaka” is really easy to make. Directly translated ”pepparkaka” means pepper cookie. Historically these cookies actually had pepper in them! This recipe does not have any pepper in it, but ginger, clove and cinnamon! You can roll the dough thin and cut out shapes as with any other gingerbread recipe, but since these cookies are leavened with the butter instead of baking powder, they are more crumbly so don´t make a huge gingerbread house out of it! Another serving idea is to pipe royal icing onto the cakes. For a christmas dinner party, cut the cookies into smaller shapes and pipe the guests´ names on them. Voila, edible placement cards! In Scandinavia Christmas trees can be decorated with gingerbread cookies too.