Last week I went to a cookie swap and came home with all the delicious cookies in the land. For my contribution, I made our usual holiday cookies from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book. They're easy, tasty, and not too sweet.

The recipe makes--wait for it---5 DOZEN COOKIES. So clearly I had to double the batch, right? Right. The doubled recipe barely fit in my mixing bowl, so you should probably use two bowls (or a really gargantuan one) if you want to do such a thing. This also means that I now have three extra rolls of cookie dough waiting and ready in the freezer. Yay, spontaneous future cookies!

Swedish farmer cookies

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup slivered almonds--use the thinnest slices you can find, not the big chunks
1 tbsp molasses
2/3 cup softened sweet butter
1 egg
2 tbsp water

Mix everything together and form the resulting dough (which will look crumbly, but is really not) into 3 or 4 long skinny rolls. Just squeeze them together with your hands.

Wrap the rolls in foil or plastic wrap and stick them in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. Then slice each roll into 1/4 inch cookies and bake at 400F on parchment-covered or greased cookie sheets for 8-10 minutes. You want to take them out of the oven when they’re just barely golden brown.

Now you have cookies! Eat them with all the tea.