Family members gather every year to create thousands of cookies
Baking Christmas cookies with 73-year-old Carol Malmgren seems chaotic.
Every year on the first Saturday in December, at least 30 of her relatives crowd into her Pine Valley Drive home to continue the 60-year-old tradition they call "cookie day."
These days, the baking starts before 9 a.m. By dinner time, there are thousands - yep, thousands - of traditional Swedish cookies. Carol's 15-year-old granddaughter, Hanna Nibbe, brings photos to school to prove to her friends that she isn't kidding - her family really makes between 3,000 and 5,000 cookies on cookie day.
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<td>By the numbers</td>
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<td>31 family members baking
20 or 25 pounds of Land O'Lakes butter
20 or 30 pounds of Gold Medal flour
6 pounds of sugar
8 pounds of powdered sugar
5 dozen eggs</td>
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The cookies are divided among the participating households, with a few dozen extra for whoever is hosting the entire clan for Christmas Eve. This year, at least 500 of the cookies will go to the nonprofit MotherHouse, a crisis nursery.
Cookie assembly line
The houseful of helpers keep busy all day. But Carol and her sister, Sandy Carlson, 67, have it all under control: Think of it as an assembly line.
On Saturday, Carol and Sandy worked together at the dining room table, rolling out and shaping dough with cookie cutters. Other helpers rotated throughout the day.
The grown children - Sandy's two, Carol's four and all the spouses - largely shared kitchen duties.
Two of the daughters - Carol's Carrie Kruzan, 41 of Madison, Wis., and Sandy's Shelly Gross, 36 of Loves Park - mixed cookie dough and icing. Carol's oldest, 47-year-old Sue Altschwager of Boulder Junction, Wis., spent the day in a chair beside the two stacked ovens. The husbands passed unbaked cookie sheets and moved the finished cookies into the next room.
The grandchildren - seven of Carol's 10 and all five of Sandy's - decorated cookies together at a folding table in the living room.
The teenage girls used tweezers to decorate the cookies with elaborate swirls and shapes while the littler ones liberally shook sprinkles onto the cookies.
"I'm eating this one. I'm going to put it in my mouth," 3-year-old Mason Gross told his cousin, 5-year-old Lydia Carlson. She stopped dumping red and green sugar sprinkles on the Christmas tree-shaped pepparkakor cookies to scold him.
The little ones jogged between the decorating table and the living room, where they were taking turns playing video games on the big screen TV or being flipped upside down by Sandy's son-in-law, Ryan Gross.
'It's just traditional'
The group clapped when Carol's youngest, 40-year-old Brad Malmgren of Lakeville, Minn., stopped videotaping the scene long enough to show off his own batch of cookie dough.
"They're only clapping because I actually did something," he said. "I'm more of the supervisor."
This is what cookie day is all about. The family cookie day started in 1946 after the World War II sugar ration ended. Carol was 12 and Sandy was 6 when their mother and grandmother started the tradition.
Now, the family can't imagine Christmas without cookie day.
"It's just traditional," Carol said. "We wouldn't think of not doing it."
Staff writer Bridget Tharp may be reached at 815-987-1354 or btharp@rrstar.com.
Carol and Sandy's traditional Swedish cookies
(The sisters swear by Land O'Lakes brand butter and Gold Medal flour)
<u>Pepparkakor ginger cookies</u>
(Carol Malmgren's favorite traditional Swedish cookie.)
Ingredients
1 cup butter
11/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon dark corn syrup
3 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
1 egg
31/8 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 teaspoons ginger
3 teaspoons cloves
Directions
Cream butter; add sugar and cream until light and fluffy. Beat in syrup, juice, rind and egg.
Next, sift flour with baking soda and spices. Stir into creamed mixture and mix thoroughly. Cover bowl and chill dough in refrigerator overnight.
Then, roll out dough on lightly floured pastry cloth. Should be very thin. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 340 degrees for 4 or 5 minutes. Makes about 12 dozen.
<u>Dreams (Drommar) sugar cookies
</u>
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter or 1/2 cup Crisco
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pulverized baking ammonia (available at a local pharmacy)
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
Directions
Cream butter; add sugar and cream again.
Next, sift together baking ammonia and flour and stir into creamed mixture with vanilla or almond extract. Mix well.
Chill dough overnight.
Shape dough into four rolls about 12 inches long. Cut into slices. Shape into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Gently squish the ball with a cookie press or bottom of glass coated in sugar.
Bake at 365 degrees for 8 minutes. Makes about 2 dozen.
<u>Pecan Balls
</u>
Ingredients
1 cup butter
3 tablespoons powered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups of cake flour
1 cup chopped nuts
Directions
Cream butter, while adding ingredients one at a time.
Chill dough overnight.
Roll dough into 11/2-inch balls.
Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen.