Jødekager

Lore & Background

Jødekager have Sephardi origins from Iberian Jews who resettled in the Netherlands after the Spanish Inquisition. According to the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, these Spanish and Portuguese Jews merged their Moorish-influenced Iberian fare with local Scandinavian cuisine. Due to wide availability, butter was used instead of olive oil. Variations on Jewish butter cookies eventually spread to Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia, as well as England and Germany. The earliest recorded recipe for a 'white Jewish cookie' dates to 1796, and by the 19th century, a local version topped with nuts and cinnamon had become established. Because butter cookies were a Christmas tradition for Danish Christians, Jewish butter cookies became a popular Christmas dessert.

Reader's Guide

Several different cookie recipes have been called 'jødekager' in Denmark. A 'white Jewish cookie' was the first recorded, with a recipe dating back to 1796 made with a yeast dough that rose overnight and was spiced with anise. Early 19th century recipes swapped the yeast dough for eggs, almond flour, and cardamom, but this cookie fell out of popularity after the mid-19th century. A 'brown Jewish cookie' emerged around the same period, first recorded in 1853, including flour, butter, almond flour, vanilla, cardamom, eggs, and brown sugar, and sprinkled with cinnamon, sugar, and chopped almonds before baking. By the 1890s, recipes began to appear without spices in the dough, more closely resembling the modern version. Today, the base consists of butter, wheat flour, sugar, and typically egg, always brushed with cinnamon sugar and possibly topped with chopped almonds. The historic heavily spiced recipes evidence the cookie's connection to the Jewish community, as Jewish bakeries had deeper ties to imported spices.

Did You Know?

• The name 'Jødekager' literally means 'Jewish cookies' in Danish.
• The first recorded recipe for a 'white Jewish cookie' dates to 1796 and used a yeast dough with anise.
• A 'brown Jewish cookie' was first recorded in 1853 and included brown sugar and cardamom.
• By the 1890s, recipes for jødekager began to appear without spices in the dough.

From Iberia to Copenhagen: A Migrant Cookie's Journey

Jødekager—literally 'Jewish cookies' in Danish—carry a migration story that stretches back to the Iberian Peninsula. Their roots trace to Sephardi Jews who, following the Spanish Inquisition, resettled in the Netherlands. As food historian Gil Marks notes in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, these Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities blended their Moorish-influenced Iberian cooking traditions with the local Scandinavian fare they encountered. One practical adaptation stands out: where olive oil had been the traditional fat, the wide availability of butter in northern Europe led bakers to substitute it, giving the cookies their characteristic richness. From the Netherlands, variations on these Jewish butter cookies—known in Dutch as Joodse boterkoeke—spread across Scandinavia and into England and Germany. By the sixteenth century, Jewish bakeries in Copenhagen were already producing a distinctly local version, topping their butter cookies with nuts and cinnamon. What began as a displaced community's culinary heritage had become embedded in Danish baking culture.

Two Generations of Recipes: White and Brown

Danish cookbooks record at least two distinct lineages of jødekager, each with its own character. The earliest documented version, the hvide jødekage or 'white Jewish cookie,' appears in a 1796 recipe. It relied on a yeast dough that was left to rise overnight and flavored with anise. In the early nineteenth century, bakers replaced that yeast base with a richer mixture of eggs, almond flour, and cardamom. Yet this white cookie gradually faded from cookbooks after the mid-1800s, leaving no trace in later collections. Around 1853, a brune jødekage—'brown Jewish cookie'—entered the record. Its dough combined flour, butter, almond flour, vanilla, cardamom, eggs, and brown sugar, and before going into the oven it was dusted with cinnamon, sugar, and chopped almonds. Some bakers went further, adding ginger, rose water, beer, or lemon to the batter. By the 1890s, however, recipes began dropping the heavy spice load from the dough itself, moving closer to the simpler, cinnamon-topped cookie that Danes bake today.

A Christmas Staple Born from Cross-Cultural Exchange

Jødekager occupy a unique position in Danish holiday baking because their rise to Christmas-table prominence is a story of cultural cross-pollination. Butter cookies were already a well-established Christmas tradition among Danish Christians. When Jewish bakers in Copenhagen began producing their own version of the butter cookie—topped with nuts and cinnamon—the two traditions converged. The Jewish version became a popular Christmas dessert, and by the time the name jødekager entered common Danish usage, the cookie was firmly associated with the winter holiday season. The spice-heavy early recipes offer a clue to why Jewish bakers were particularly well-suited to this confection: their bakeries maintained deeper connections to imported spices, giving them access to cardamom, anise, ginger, and rose water that were less common in mainstream Danish kitchens. Today, the cookie remains a staple of Danish Christmas, its soft butter base and cinnamon-sugar topping a familiar sight in households across the country, even as the name itself preserves the memory of the Jewish community that first brought the recipe to Danish soil.

The Modern Cookie: Simplicity with a Spiced Past

Today's jødekage is a study in elegant restraint. The dough is a straightforward combination of butter, wheat flour, sugar, and typically egg, producing a soft, tender base. Before or after baking, every version is brushed with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, and many bakers finish the top with a scattering of chopped almonds. That is essentially it—no cardamom in the dough, no rose water, no beer. Yet the modern recipe's simplicity is the product of centuries of simplification. The heavily spiced versions of the nineteenth century, which drew on anise, cardamom, ginger, and even lemon, reflected the Jewish bakers' access to imported aromatics. As those spices were gradually stripped from the dough by the 1890s, what remained was the cinnamon-sugar surface that now defines the cookie. The result is a treat that tastes of Danish Christmas while carrying, in its very name, the imprint of Sephardi Jewish bakers who first carried the idea from Iberia, through the Netherlands, and into Copenhagen's ovens.