One day I want to have a selection of recipes that includes all my favorite and traditional Swedish baked goods. Whenever I am in Sweden and step a foot into a bakery - in particular in my mom's hometown which has many beautiful bakeries and cafés - I feel I am at home. It is such a cozy and wonderful feeling. The shelves of the bakeries are filled with kanelbullar, prinsessbakelse, budpestbakelse, wienerbröd, mazariner and other delicious treats which I grow up with and I truly love. I love visiting bakeries and pâtisseries around the world - Paris is probably the greatest place and you know how much I admire French pâtisserie - in order to get inspired but I do not have this feeling of home. I only have this feeling in Swedish bakeries which is wonderful and maybe it is the place where I belong. I always find it uncomfortable when people asking me where I am from because I do not feel that I belong to one place.

Skurna chokladkakor which simply means sliced chocolate cookies are one those baked goods that you will always find in a Swedish bakery and it is a classic Swedish cookie that my grandmother enjoyed, my mom likes and I am very fond of this sligthly crispy chocolate cookie, too. 
Traditionally, these chocolate cookies are topped with pearl sugar. The other day I was retesting my cookie recipe and topped half of the cookies with chopped almonds and it was such a brilliant idea. It never crossed my mind using anything else than pearl sugar; I got probably caught up in tradition! 
If you cannot find pearl sugar - an ingredient that is often used in Swedish baking, for instance Swedish cinnamon rolls are always topped with pearl sugar - or if you don't like pearl sugar use roughly chopped almonds or nuts. It is such a great alternative and I think it taste even better with almonds and nuts but shhh, don't tell anyone.
Makes about 50 cookies

INGREDIENTS

  • 200 g  / 7/8 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 200 g  / 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg (large)
  • 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar *
  • 300 g / 3 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 35 g / 1/4 cup of unsweetened raw cacao powder
  • Pearl sugar, roughly chopped almonds or chopped hazelnuts
  • 1 egg (small), beaten
* You can make your own vanilla sugar (it is very common in Europe) which is very simple: Splitt one vanilla been into two halves and remove the seeds with the help of a knife.  Fill a jar with granulated sugar, add the vanilla seeds and the used vanilla bean. Let the mixture age for two weeks. Voilà, you have your own homemade vanilla sugar.

DIRECTIONS

  • Preheat the oven to 200 °C / 400 °F.
  • Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  • Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add egg and vanilla sugar.
  • Sift flour, cacao and baking powder in a separate bowl and mix well.
  • Add flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.
  • As soon as the dough comes together, transfer the dough to a floured surface. Knead the dough until it is smooth (it gets a little bit messy). If the dough is too sticky, add a little bit more flour.
  • Divide the dough into four parts. Roll each dough into a log (2 cm / 0.8 inch Ø ). 
  • Place two logs on each baking sheet. Make sure that there is enough space between each log. Flatten each log slighty until it is about 4 cm / 1.5 inches. 
  • Brush the logs with a beaten egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar, chopped almonds or hazelnuts. 
  • Bake the logs for 12 to 15 minutes.
  • Let the cookies cool for one minute. Take a sharp knife and cut diagonally into 2 cm / 0,8 inches slices. The cookies will be soft but will harden when cooled. Let the cookies cool completely on a wire rack. 
  • Store the cookies in an air-tight container up to two weeks.