Nana's Sandkakers

Happy Friday!! And especially hoppy, because it's Easter weekend! haha hoppy, get it? That's the mother in me trying to make a small joke :P Anyway, do you have big plans for your weekend? We'll be following our usual holiday ritual and celebrating with lots of family and food! Sunday we'll be gathering for Easter brunch at my sister in laws and she always puts out a beautiful spread where we all kick back and watch the cousins running around. Before the main event, we're hosting some of my side of the family on Saturday for a baking day. Every year we get together at my Aunt Greta's the day before Thanksgiving and bake tons and tons of pies and I guess this is sort of a spin off on that idea. My brother Dan and his beautiful family, Nahir, Isabel and Isaac will be making their way into town as they're the ones who requested the baking day in the first place. Dan was hoping to make a batch of our special family cookies, sandkakers. It's a great almond flavored cookie that we like to make in a group because their pretty labor intensive. After mixing the dough, we sit around pressing it into these pretty tins that they bake in. It's a lot of work and leads to a lot of hand cramps, but stealing the dough along the way makes it worth while. And of course, the end result too! The sandkakers are a Norwegian recipe that come from my great grandmother, Johanna Sophie, better known as Nana. I never had the pleasure of meeting Nana but from what I'm told, she always used to bake and I guess I'd like to think that I follow in her footsteps in that way.

That's Nana and Grandpa on the left with Mumu on the right, my other great grandmother, Elsie. They must have been visitng my grandparents at the time. What a great photo of my family back in the 60's, don't you think?

Above is a photo of our sandkaker tins! We'll press the dough in, bake them off and then once they're cool you have to bang the back of the tin gently so they pop out without breaking! It's a process, but soo worth it!! I can't wait til Saturday!!! I'm looking forward to a lovely weekend filled with all my favorite things, and maybe Nana and Mumu will be smiling down watching us bake those sandkaker cookies! We'll be thinking of you, girls! Have a great weekend!!