Tender sugar cookies that melt on the tip of your tongue: the scent of cardamom with an apple caramel chaser. Each half, now together, and greater than the sum of its parts.
The house smell like the holidays. Sugar and spices and piles of cookies in the kitchen. Gingersnaps and Cardamom Sugar Cookies. I’ve got a spiced apple caramel hangover and so this is all I’ll write of food and holidays today.
Waaayyy back in the day a boy gave me a mixed tape. I still have that tape tucked away somewhere even though I don’t have a tape player anymore. It’s a bit about the music and a bit about the boy. Track One Side One – Lips Like Sugar by Echo and the Bunnymen.
http://youtu.be/9hGcJA8fXvU
And so sometimes when the taste of sugar hits my tongue I become more nostalgic than a cookie or caramel warrants. I am 17 years old and my heart has just been broken for the first or fourth time depending on how you count and all I’ve got left of him are some letters and a mixed tape.
Cardamom Sugar Cookies with Apple Caramel
Recipe adapted from Sheila Lukin’s Copenhagen Butter Cookies in her All Around The World Cookbook

Cardamom Sugar Cookies with Apple Caramel
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½-1 tsp cardamom
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup regular sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 ¼ cups AP flour
Instructions
- In an electric mixture cream together the butter, sugars, vanilla, cardamom, and salt. Thoroughly incorporate all the ingredients but don’t over mix, the butter should not be fluffy.
- Add the egg yolk and mix until combined.
- Add the flour in two stages, mixing until just incorporated.
- Form the dough into a log and wrap well, refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight (freeze any unused portions of the dough for later use).
- Preheat the oven to 325 and line two baking sheets with parchment, waxed paper, or a silpat.
- Allow the dough to soften slightly at room temperature before rolling. Divide the dough into four sections and roll out one section at a time, between two sheets of parchment, to desired thickness. Return the rolled out dough to the refrigerator to chill for a few minutes before cutting.
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