You don't have to be Norwegian to bake n or enjoy n these holiday cookies

Krumkake, brun brod, piparkakut and sandbakelser.

The holiday season doesn't begin at Karen Karpen and Glenn Krasner's Los Altos Hills, Calif., home until the traditional Scandinavian cookies with tongue-twisting names emerge from the oven, filling the kitchen with the sweet aroma of butter, sugar and spice.

Others might mark the season with a day of baking, but Karpen goes all out. To the quartet of standards, she usually adds several more varieties of buttery cookies to round out her annual production. Baking is a cherished tradition in Norway, her grandparents' homeland, where custom dictates seven varieties of cookies be served at Christmas.

"We always make too many,'' she says. "We give them away and eat a lot of them, too.''

Most of the recipes date back to Karpen's childhood in Oregon, where she learned to bake from her mother. The crisp, almond-accented sandbakelser, often called sand tarts, are straight out of a much-loved 1963 Betty Crocker cookbook, the spine broken and the pages interleaved with recipe clippings.

More recently, the retired lawyer has baked her cookies with schoolchildren and volunteered to teach her recipes to adults as part of school fundraising efforts. Now, she's agreed to share her cookie secrets with readers.

In a marathon baking session, Karpen demonstrated the techniques behind some of Scandinavia's favorite holiday treats. Krasner, a retired software executive, served as sous chef.

Outside the kitchen door, the family wirehaired terrier, Shasta, barked and wiggled. "He wants to eat cookies,'' Karpen explained. "He absolutely moans over cookies.''

Brun brod, redolent of cardamom and cinnamon, is a fairly straightforward nut cookie made with an ample portion of butter. Karpen uses Tillamook because that's what she grew up cooking with, but any good quality unsalted butter will do.

She creamed the butter and sugar, beat in an egg, then stirred in the spices, nuts and flour.

"My 80-year-old cousin in Norway uses these,'' Karpen said, patting her electric mixer, "so we don't have to feel guilty about being American about it.''

Pinching off pieces of dough, she quickly rolled them between her palms into three-fourths-inch balls and dipped the tops in pearl sugar she buys at Ikea's Scandinavian food court or colored sugar sprinkles from the supermarket. The balls were placed on lightly greased cookie sheets and pushed into the oven.

The spicy piparkakut dough, a Finnish gingersnap made with whipping cream and syrup, had been made ahead and stashed in the refrigerator to chill. Because the dough is so soft, it must be rolled out quickly, cut into shapes and baked before it warms up if the cookie is to be crisp.

The recipe came off the package of the pig-shaped cookie cutter Karpen bought years ago. Pigs are a popular Yuletide symbol in Scandinavia, perhaps because the traditional Christmas meal is roast pork.

Shaping the delicate sandbakelser takes some practice. They require small fluted molds or tiny tartlet tins, which can be hard to find. Specialty stores carry them. So do some online sources such as www.scandinavian-south.com. But Karpen suggests mini-muffin tins as a viable substitute.

"This is a matter of pinching and pinching,'' Karpen said as she demonstrated. "You put some dough in the bottom and start pressing. You want it pretty thin, but you want to cover the mold.

"You don't want to go over the edge because it makes them hard to get out. They're hard to get out anyway, but they taste good broken.''

The tins were placed on cookie sheets and baked just until they started to brown. Then they were placed on wire racks to cool a few minutes before Karpen tapped their bottoms lightly on the countertop to release them.

If everything goes right, the crunchy cookies pop right out. Some, however, need more encouragement.

The cookies can be filled with jam or custard, but Karpen's family serves them plain, turned upside down on a tray, the better to appreciate the fluted patterns.

Even more dependent on the right equipment are the krumkake (pronounced KRUM-ka-ka), thin, crisp butter cookies baked on a decorative surface similar to a waffle iron, then rolled into cones. Karpen has a collection of old-fashioned irons that are heated on the stove. But she's a convert to the electric irons available online at sites such as www.amazon.com.

"This is so much easier,'' she said. "You do two at a time so it doesn't take the whole evening.''

Karpen placed about a tablespoon of dough on the preheated iron just back from the center of each incised circle, closed the lid and let the cookies bake until the steam slowed markedly. The cookies are a pale golden brown when done. Quickly, she removed the cookies from the iron and passed them to Krasner, who deftly wrapped them around cone-shaped wooden roller pins and set them on a rack to cool.

When the cookies are cool, the wooden pins are removed. The cookies resemble ice cream cones. Although Karpen and Krasner prefer the beautifully etched krumkake without embellishment, their sons Erik and Justin love to fill them with whipped cream.

Either way, the holidays wouldn't be the same without krumkake on the family's cookie tray alongside the sandbakelser, piparkakut and brun brod.

Piparkakut

Karpen uses imported beet sugar syrup she buys at Ikea for this recipe, which came off the back of a cookie cutter package years ago. She says that molasses and light or dark corn syrup also will work fine for these traditional gingersnaps, which are often cut into the shape of pigs for the holidays.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

½ cup (1 stick) butter

1½ cups sugar

¾ cup syrup

1½ teaspoons ground cloves

1½ teaspoons cinnamon

1½ teaspoons ground ginger

¾ cup whipping cream

• About 4 cups flour

1½ teaspoons baking soda

Cream together butter, sugar, syrup and spices until fluffy. In a separate bowl, whip cream and then fold into the butter mixture. Mix 1 cup flour with baking soda and stir into the batter. Work in more flour until the dough is smooth. It may not require all 4 cups of the flour.

Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Roll out chilled dough on a well-floured board to about 1/8-inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters. Place on ungreased cookie sheets about 1 inch apart and bake at 350 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes, until bottoms turn a golden brown.

Source: Karen Karpen

Sandbakelser

These little cookie shells may be filled with jam or whipped cream, but Karen Karpen's family prefers them plain, the better to savor their butter and almond flavors.

Makes 3 ½ dozen cookies

1/3 cup blanched, skinned almonds

4 raw almonds

¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter or margarine

¾ cup sugar

1 egg white

1¾ cups flour

Put blanched and raw almonds in food processor and whirl until ground into a coarse meal or chop finely by hand. Mix in butter, sugar and egg white thoroughly. Stir in flour. Cover with plastic wrap and chill.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Press dough into small fluted molds or tartlet tins to form thin coating. (Mini muffin pans would work, too.) Place molds, dough side up, on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until cookies begin to brown lightly.

Let cool a few minutes then tap molds on table to loosen cookies; turn them out.

Source: "Betty Crocker Cooky Book,'' 1963 edition. A facsimile edition, published in 2002, is available (160 pp., $24.95).

Brun Brod

Makes about 72 cookies

1 cup butter or margarine (2 sticks), softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon crushed cardamom

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup finely chopped almonds

2½ cups flour

• About ½ cup pearl sugar or colored sugar crystals

In large bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy, then beat in egg. Stir in cardamom, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and almonds. Stir in flour until well blended and dough is stiff.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Shape into ¾-inch balls. Dip tops in pearl or colored sugar, pressing it in slightly. Place balls sugar side up on lightly greased cookie sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden. Remove to racks to cool.

Source: Women's Day magazine, December 1976

Krumkake

Although Karen Karpen made these cookies with old-fashioned stove-top irons for years, she is a convert to the electric model. This recipe, which came with her VillaWare krumkake maker, makes krumkake that are a little thicker than the traditional version. An electric iron designed to make Italian pizzelle would work for krumkake, too.

Makes about 60 cookies

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

½ cup butter or margarine (1 stick), melted and cooled

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon ground cardamom seed

1½ cups flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Beat eggs and sugar together until well-mixed, but do not overbeat. Add cooled butter or margarine, vanilla and cardamom. Sift flour and cornstarch together and add to egg mixture. Batter will have a dough-like consistency.

Preheat krumkake iron. Use spoon to drop just enough batter onto the hot griddle to fill in the circle shape. Close lid and bake until batter stops steaming and cookies are a light golden brown, about 30 seconds.

Remove cookies and, while hot, shape around wooden krumkake roller pin to make a cone shape. Let cool a couple of minutes on pin until they hold their shape. Remove cookie from pin and finish cooling on rack.

Serve plain, dusted with powdered sugar or filled with sweetened whipped cream, custard, jam or ice cream.

To keep cookies crisp, store them in an airtight container.

Source: VillaWare