My Favorite Gift From Grandma

I have always loved to bake, especially cookies!

I learned how to bake from watching my mom who is a wonderful cookie maker.

My mom had a wonderful teacher too - my Grandma.

For my 18th birthday, Grandma asked me if I was interested in anything of hers -

this is what I chose.

To me, the best part of this book is her handwriting on the inside front cover.

Oh, and the butter stains on the pages of our favorite tried and true recipes.

Every year at Christmas time my mom would bake many different kinds of cookies.
When I got married in 1990, I took over the Christmas cookie baking for our family. It's a tradition that's important to me and one I hope my girls will carry on too.
We're Norwegian, so we always have the traditional Scandinavian cookies at Christmas that my parents had growing up. Our must haves are: lefse, krumkake, fattigmand, spritz, Swedish cream wafers, and sometimes kransekake.
My hubby says it wouldn't be Christmas if he didn't have fattigmand,
so that's what I made today.
Fattigmand is a different kind of cookie - it's fried not baked.
It's rolled out thin like a pie crust and then you cut it in diamond shapes

using this handy cutter. I sometimes just use a pastry wheel to cut the dough instead.
When the dough is cut, you then pull one tip through the center slit to form its shape.

To cook, fry 'em in hot oil turning to brown evenly on both sides.

Fattigmand stores nicely in cooky tins.

Right before serving, sprinkle with powered sugar.

These are a must for our Christmas cookie tray.

Now that hubby got his request, I need to get busy with the others: Daddy, David, Nathan, Kyle, I'm working on yours...