These are delicious traditional Finnish cookies with browned butter. This gives these cookies a lovely nutty, deep flavor. They are filled with marmalade and rolled in sugar.
These biscuits that melt in your mouth get their name from how they are shaped; with a spoon.
Origin
These are Finnish cookies also called herrasväen pikkuleivät-meaning gentlemen´s cookies. The inventor of this recipe is unknown, but they have been made in Finland for over a hundred years. The recipe is passed on over generations.
These browned butter cookies were made for Christmas and Easter but nowadays primarily for family gatherings and many other parties, not so much for Christmas anymore. The recipe is excellent since you can bake these ahead of time.
Some recipes have baking soda (only bicarbonate) in the batter, but I like to use baking powder. The batter has nothing sour like yogurt, so the baking soda can leave some unwanted aroma in the batter; this is not the problem with baking powder.
These cookies are traditionally flavored with vanilla sugar, but you can use vanilla aroma since the vanilla sugar can be hard to find and is a Finnish thing.
Ingredients
- Butter, you can even use lactose-free butter
- All-purpose wheat flour
- Sugar (even brown sugar is ok)
- Baking powder
- Vanilla
- Powdered sugar or refined sugar as decoration
- Raspberry marmalade
Flavoring the dough
The cookie dough is traditionally only flavored with browned butter and vanilla. If you like to make a variation, you can also add cardamom, cinnamon, or grated lemon zest.
Browned butter gives the cookies caramel and nutty aromas. The butter's proteins caramelize and form brown spots in the melted butter.
Different fillings
Raspberry marmalade is the traditional filling in these cookies. Jams can be used if the consistency is quite firm. Other marmalades are also a good option, like strawberry, apricot, plum, or apple.
Modern variations are filled with lemon curd or even Nutella.
Equipment
The most important tool in making these cookies is to choose the right spoon. It should be deep enough, so you get nicely formed cookies. I like to use old silver spoons that are oval formed.
If you use a big/medium-sized soup spoon, you get 20 cookies from the dough. If you use teaspoons, you get 30-40 cookies.
Instructions
- Chop your butter into small cubes and melt it at medium heat in a saucepan. The butter starts to sizzle when the water evaporates. After this, the butter begins to brown; now, you need to stir your butter, so it does not burn.
- You can brown your butter to light color with brown spots or a more nutty color with a deeper flavor. Mix in the sugar and cool down to room temperature. Lift your butter to cool down, so it stops browning. ( The brown spots are the caramelized milk proteins, they have the most flavor)
- Add the liquid vanilla flavor to your butter; mix it and the baking powder in the flour if you use vanilla sugar. Add the flour to the cooled butter and mix it into a dough. Place it in the fridge for 5-10 minutes if the dough feels too soft.
- Preheat your oven to 350F (175C). Shape the cookies with a spoon.
- Press the dough firmly to the spoon and slide it out with your fingers. You can place the cookies quite close on the parchment paper; they hold their shape well in the oven.
- Bake the cookies for 12 minutes if you made them with a soup spoon. If you use a smaller teaspoon, bake them for about 8 minutes.
- Let the cookies cool down before filling them with marmalade. Spread some marmalade on one cookie and add another as a lid on top. Press gently.
- You can roll the cookie in sugar or sprinkle powdered sugar on top.
How to decorate
It is up to your preference how you like them. These brown butter spoon cookies are traditionally rolled in fine sugar. It can be messy to eat, though, so another option is to sprinkle some powdered sugar on the cookies.
Modern cookie variations can be decorated with melted chocolate stripes. It is good if the chocolate is tempered so you don't get any discoloration on it. Candy melt buttons are a good option for decorating.
Gluten-free spoon cookies
It is simple to make these cookies gluten-free. I used a gluten-free flour mix and used the same amount of flour, 1.8 cups. Gluten-free flour can though have some variation in how much liquid they absorb, so you might need to adjust the amount.
These gluten-free ones were powdered with a fine sugar that I ground a bit more powdery with a spice grinder.
Storing
The cookies keep for a week at room temperature in an airtight container or in the fridge for up to two weeks.
Tips and questions
Lusikkaleivät is a Finnish brown butter-flavored cookie formed with a spoon filled with marmalade.
You added too much flour to your dough or cooked them for too long.
Freeze in an airtight box. Put some parchment paper between the cookie layers. Add some sugar on top of the cookies after thawing. They keep three months in the freezer.
Other Finnish festive foods
- Raspberry caramel cake-Kinuskikakku
- Salmon sandwich cake-lohi voileipäkakku
- Sima-Finnish lemon "mead" drink
- Finnish strawberry cake
- Bilberry pie
Finnish spoon cookies
Equipment
- 1 deep soup spoon or teaspoon.
Ingredients
- 200 grams butter
- ¾ cups sugar
- 1.8 cups white all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
- ½ cup raspberry or strawberry marmalade
Instructions
- Chop your butter into small cubes and melt it at medium heat in a saucepan. The butter starts to sizzle when the water evaporates. After this the butter starts to brown, now you need to stir your butter so it does not burn.
- You can brown your butter to light color with brown spots or a more nutty color with a deeper flavor. Lift your butter to cool down so it stops browning. Mix in the sugar and cool down to room temperature.
- Add the liquid vanilla flavor to your butter. If you use vanilla sugar mix it and the baking powder in the flour. Add the flour to the cooled butter and mixit into a dough. If the dough feels too soft, place it in the fridge for 5-10 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 350F (175C). Shape the cookies with a spoon. Press the dough firmly to the spoon and slide it out with your fingers. You can place the cookies quite close to each other on the parchment paper, they hold their shape well in the oven.
- Bake the cookies for 12 minutes if you made them with a soup spoon. If you used a smaller teaspoon bake them for about 8 minutes.
- Let the cookies cool down before filling them with marmalade. Spread some marmalade on one cookie and add another as a lid on top. Press gently.
- You can roll the cookie in sugar or sprinkle some powdered sugar on top.
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