December 19--Advent at ADAFT 2013!

This is the last week of classes at the ballet school and there have been many special little festive touches.  Yesterday one of the modern teachers gave Christmas cookies to her students at the end of class.  One of my kids noticed, and, knowing that I'm American, took it upon herself to act as a cultural ambassador, saying,

"Look, E, these are brunkager.  We have them at Christmas."

Couldn't have said it better myself, kiddo.  So, these are brunkager, and yup, Danes eat them at Christmas!

December 17th--Advent at ADAFT!

Nothing says Christmas like delicious homemade cookies. So take a tip from the Scandinavegan and make these!

Cranberry-Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 stick plus 1 T softened margarine (Americans and Canadians--I recommend Earth Balance sticks. Danes--try Becel. If you don't care about dairy, you can use butter too).
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 "egg" (egg replacer powder works fine and so does ground flax; if you eat eggs you can use the real kind too of course!)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts
3/4 cup chocolate chips (or, if you live in a country that hasn't discovered chocolate chips yet, just hack up a chocolate bar into little bits).

Preheat oven to 35o F. Combine flour, baking powder and oats in a bowl. In another bowl, beat together margarine and sugars until creamy. Add "egg" and vanilla. Stir into the dry ingredient bowl, then fold in cranberries, pecans, and chocolate. Drop dough onto cookie sheets by tablespoons and flatten slightly with a fork. Bake for approximately 15 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen.