Kolasnittar: Swedish Toffee Cookies

These Swedish toffee cookies are so easy to make. So easy. Just a handful of household ingredients and you’re good to go. Five minutes prep, ten minutes baking, and unlimited pleasure when scoffing them.

The recipe for these Swedish toffee cookies was first published on my previous blog, The Culinary Jumble, in May 2016. The images have been updated and the recipe amended to include spelt flour.

What are Kolasnittar?

Kolasnittar are popular cookies here in Sweden. Snitt (plural snittar) which directly translated into English means cut, snip or slice. And this refers to the fact that after baking, the still-warm cookies are sliced diagonally.

The kola is a little more complicated. It can refer to toffee, caramel or fudge. These are definitely more on the toffee-flavour side.

These kolasnittar are baked until they are a beautiful brown colour and this gives them an almost burnt syrupy taste, which is gorgeous. They are both crunchy (at the edges) and slightly chewy in the middle at the same time.

Different types of snittar

Although the shape of snittar is pretty uniform, thickness and length can vary enormously. These are long and fairly thin, resulting in a crunchier cookie. I also make them more stubby and short snittar which allows for a chewier cookie.

These kolasnittar are left as they are, but snittar often have a sprinkling of pearl sugar, like Märtas skurna chokladkakor (chocolate cookies). They can even have a filling such as chocolate, Nutella or berries as with my vanilla blueberry snittar.

Use these cookies in a dessert

I love to eat these cookies exactly as they are. They are nothing short of divine. However, I also enjoy adding them to desserts such trifle or anything creamy. They work so well in my Daim and caramel dessert, and they would be amazing crushed up and used as a cheesecake base. That’s definitely something that is in the pipeline.

More Swedish recipes

overhead view of toffee cookies in baking paper on a black background

Print Pin

Swedish Toffee Cookies

Course Cookie

Cuisine Swedish

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 10

Servings 20 cookies

Ingredients

80g (¼ cup + 2 tbsp) sugar
100g (⅓ cup + 1 tbs) butter (softened)
1 tbsp syrup (see note 1)
140g (1⅙ cups) spelt flour (see note 2)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 175°C (350ºF) and line a large baking tray with grease-proof paper.
Beat the butter and sugar together until nice and fluffy, then beat in the syrup.
Sift the flour, cinnamon and baking powder together, then stir into the butter/sugar mixture. You should be left with a dough that comes together easily and can be rolled out (albeit a little sticky).
Divide the dough into two equal parts and roll them both out into long rectangular shapes around 25cm (9¾") long and 14cm (5½") across. You will probably find it easier to roll the dough out on the grease-proof paper and then transfer to the baking tray). The thinner the dough, the crunchier the cookie. Leave a little space in between both, as the cookies do spread out.
Take a fork and press down all over the top of the dough to create a pattern.
Bake for around 10 minutes until the cookies are a golden brown colour (slightly darker at the edges). Do not overbake!
Remove from the oven and immediately carefully cut them diagonally into strips (don't attempt to move them as this point, as they will be very soft). Do not leave them to cool before cutting, otherwise they will break into pieces.
Allow to cool completely before eating. Enjoy!

Notes

I have converted grams to cups/ounces/tablespoons using online converters. Although I have no reason to believe they are inaccurate, please be aware that I have not made this recipe with imperial measurements.