FARGO — My mother always baked a variety of Nordic treats for us at Christmastime, and she was truly masterful in her efforts. I remember beautiful platters of lacy krumkake, golden rosettes, spicy pepperkaker cookies, and perfect sandbakkels, all surrounded by charming spritz cookies in various shapes and colors. I make all these cookies now, except for sandbakkels. I can still hear my mother’s anguished cry from decades ago when she dropped a giant box filled with hundreds of sandbakkels she had spent days painstakingly crafting by hand. She never made them again.

I felt the same way about making spritz cookies for many years. Popular throughout northern Europe, spritz are made with a cookie press to create a variety of festive shapes. Similar in ingredients to sugar and shortbread cook

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