Kleinur (sg. kleina) are a tasty type of Icelandic cookie. They’re deep fried, and have a taste reminiscent of grandmother’s apple pie without the apples. So basically they taste like cookie :-)

The recipe is pretty simple, take 85 grams of butter and 200 grams of sugar and mix them. Add an egg, baking powder and baker’s ammonia (I tried to get this here, but failed, even in the biological supermarket and at the local bakery, maybe I’ll try again next time I’m in Germany – they tend to have every possible bakery supply at any supermarket), graped zest of a lemon, some cardamom, and 100 ml yoghurt or buttermilk (actually you should use súrmjólk but that’s unavailable outside Iceland). Mix this very well and add up to 700 grams of flour, preferably less until you have a smooth dough.

Split the dough in a few pieces and flatten them until quite thin, cut 3cm by 6-8cm diamonds, cut a slit diagonally, take one corner and turn it through the slit.

Put the kleinur in a frying pan at 180 degrees, after 1 to 2 minutes they’re nicely brown coloured. Eat hot with cold milk or cold with coffee.

During Jólatíð, so around Christmas, they’re served with chocolate icing. Also very nice.