Ruthie’s Scandinavian Christmas Cookies Recipe

Scandinavian Christmas cookies have been a holiday tradition in our home for about 40 years and perhaps another couple decades with our parents.

My mother-in-law Ruth Backus (Ruthie, as my father-in-law called her) taught me how to make these shortly after I married her son Dick Backus on 9/9/83.

Ruthie and my father-in-law (Ed) loved to travel throughout Europe after their retirement.  They especially enjoyed the countries of Denmark and Austria. They adored the pastries of these regions and the Viennese chocolates. Scandinavian Christmas cookies were the perfect marriage of travel memories and holiday traditions that our matriarch passed along to the generations. Ruthie instilled in me the Joy of cooking, literally, as she gave me Irma Rombauer’s the Joy of Cooking , complete with many of her handwritten notes like “caught Ed with this one”

Ruthie would make about a dozen different types of cookies during the holidays. But it was the sweet, crumbly pecan-filled delights of the Scandinavian Christmas cookies that were my favorite to make. Ruthie would wrap them up in various mailing tins and containers tied with holiday bows, tags and festive wrapping paper. She would send them out to loved ones across the country. My husband and I were fortunate to live only an 8-hour drive or 1-hour flight away from his parents’ retirement home in Prescott, Arizona.

As far as I was concerned, the holidays are meant for snowy mountain retreat of Prescott and the powdered sugar nuggets known as Scandinavian Christmas Cookies! These cookies are a quick mix of six ingredients, rolled into balls, baked and rolled in additional powder sugar. They are ready to eat warm and even better the next day(s).

My husband had many favorite childhood foods of his mother’s cooking. I was lucky enough that Ruthie shared them with me and often instructed me on just how she made them. Scandinavian Christmas cookies were among my most treasured gifts of Ruthie. Soon I would become the wife that made these snowballs of sweetness every year for my husband and for gifts for family and friends.