Piparkūkas

Ingredients

The dough

• 500 gplain flour
• 250 ghoney
• 120 gsugar
• 120 gbutter
• 1egg
• 1 teaspoonbicarbonate of soda
• a pinch of salt

The spice mix

• 2 teaspoonsground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoonground cloves
• 1 teaspoonground ginger
• 1 teaspoonground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoonground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoonground allspice
• grated zest of 1 orange

Sometimes added

• 50 gground almonds
• a splash of strong coffee
• or dark rum

To bake

• a hot oven
• lined trays
• many small cutters

Directions

1. Warm the honey, sugar and butter together. Warm it only until it is smooth. Do not let it come to a boil at all. Stir all the spices into the warm mixture. Warm honey draws out the spice aroma. Stir all of them in thoroughly.
2. Let the mixture cool considerably. Hot mixture scrambles the egg. Let it cool right down to just warm. Mixing the dry is the next step. Put the flour in a large bowl. Add the bicarbonate and the salt. Add the grated orange zest to them.
3. Whisk them all together thoroughly. The bicarbonate must be evenly spread. Whisk the dry mixture properly first. Beat the egg into the cooled honey. Pour that into the flour mixture. Bring it together into a dough. Add ground almonds for a richer dough. Rum adds a warm background note.
4. Knead it just until it is smooth. Do not overwork the dough at all. Wrap the dough well and refrigerate it. Rest it as long as you possibly can. Take out a small piece of the dough.
5. Work with a small piece at a time. Keep the rest in the refrigerator. Warm dough is impossible to roll thin. Cold dough holds together better. Let the piece sit out briefly. Straight from the fridge it is too hard. Flour the whole surface generously. Roll it out as thin as you can. Roll out from the centre outward.
6. Turn the dough a quarter regularly. That keeps it even and stops sticking. Take real time over rolling it. Cut shapes with small cutters. Lifting them needs very real care.
7. Lift them with a thin palette knife. Very thin dough tears when lifted. Work gently and quite slowly at it. Set them on lined baking trays. Leave small gaps between them. A small gap between them is enough. Heat the oven to one hundred and eighty degrees.
8. Bake them for about six minutes. Paper-thin biscuits bake very fast. Stand and watch them as they bake. Judging them takes a careful look. Take them out of the oven slightly early. Lift them out onto a wire rack. Move them very carefully while warm.
9. Use a thin palette knife again. Snap one of them when it is cold. Use that if anyone vulnerable will eat them. Keep them all in a sealed tin. Layer them up with baking paper. They keep crisp for many weeks. Set them all out on a serving plate. They keep for many weeks sealed.

Technique

• The atlas also carries piparkoogid from Estonia, the same biscuit under an Estonian name — near-identical in every way, with the names sharing a root (pipar meaning pepper, kūkas and koogid both cakes). The atlas lists dishes by country and each country names its own foods, so it appears twice; saying so is better than merging silently.
• These are rolled paper-thin, around two millimetres or less, until you can almost see light through them — thinner than most gingerbread, and the snap when broken is the whole point. Work with a small piece at a time with the rest refrigerated, since warm dough cannot be rolled that thin, and lift the cut shapes with a thin palette knife because very thin dough tears.
• They bake in about six minutes and honey caramelises so fast they go from done to burnt in seconds — watch them from four minutes and do not leave the oven. Take them out slightly soft, since they crisp further on cooling and overbaked ones taste bitter.

Substitutions

• Ground almonds give a softer richer biscuit, a splash of strong coffee deepens the colour and flavour, and dark rum adds a warm background note; all are genuinely used.
• Royal icing on them is very common and leaving them plain equally so; the icing uses raw egg white, so use pasteurised white if anyone vulnerable will eat them.

Variations

• The dough rests for weeks and sometimes a month, mellowing the spices and deepening the flavour; a day or two helps a great deal and the atlas gives the shorter route while saying what the tradition is.
• The recipe makes about a hundred biscuits, which is not a mistake — they are baked in large batches at the start of Advent and eaten through to Christmas, with tins sitting out for visitors.
• Snap one when cold to test: it should break cleanly, and a bendy biscuit was rolled too thick or slightly underbaked.

History

Latvian Christmas baking; the dough rests for weeks before being rolled paper-thin and cut into shapes.

Frequently asked questions

What is Piparkūkas?

Piparkūkas is a snack from Latvia: very thin snapping spiced biscuits baked all through Advent. Latvian Christmas baking; the dough rests for weeks before being rolled paper-thin and cut into shapes.

How long does Piparkūkas take to make?

Piparkūkas takes 40 minutes plus resting of preparation and 8 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes about 100 biscuits. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Piparkūkas?

Yes, within limits. Ground almonds give a softer richer biscuit, a splash of strong coffee deepens the colour and flavour, and dark rum adds a warm background note; all are genuinely used. Royal icing on them is very common and leaving them plain equally so; the icing uses raw egg white, so use pasteurised white if anyone vulnerable will eat them.

What is the most important thing to get right in Piparkūkas?

Warm the honey, sugar and butter together. Warm it only until it is smooth. Do not let it come to a boil at all. Stir all the spices into the warm mixture. Warm honey draws out the spice aroma. Stir all of them in thoroughly.