What the heck is a sandbakkel? Find out Saturday

To score Norwegian cookies at the annual Nordic Festival, you have to be scrappy. And arrive early.

A little context: Two years ago, the Daughters of Norway Embla Lodge No. 2 made about 200 dozen cookies for the festival, expecting they might have leftovers. They sold out after just a few hours.

Last year, they made more than 400 dozen cookies. And still ran out. But that time, they had enough cookies to last until 1:30 p.m.

This year? They’ve made around 450 dozen cookies, and I’ll just go ahead and issue this directive: You want the cookies? Show up during the early part of the festival, which will be from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at Edgemont Junior High.

The cookies have become so popular, “I think we could sell any amount we bake,” said festival volunteer Diane Nelson, who is one of the ringleaders of the lodge’s cookie bakers.

And with good cause. Norwegian cookies are known worldwide for their delicate buttery textures, their assertive ginger spicing, or because, well, many of them are deep-fried.

There’s the butter spritz, which are pressed through a mold and baked into a beautiful swirl. The krumkake is a griddle cookie that’s rolled around a cone as it cools, creating a delicious Norwegian waffle-like cookie.

There’s also the rosette, a fried cookie that takes on the shape of the iron used to fry the cookie. The lodge uses a snowflake pattern. Sandbakkels are those little delicate fluted cup-shaped cookies that taste to me like a hybrid sugar cookie and shortbread.

This year, they’re promising to have fattigman, which is known as “the poor man’s cookie,” a fried cookie.

The annual celebration of all things Norwegian features a lot more than cookies, although that’s certainly the thing I look forward to most. Here’s a quick look at what’s happening at this year’s Nordic Festival:

Dining: A plated meal with meatballs, potatoes, lingonberry sauce and red cabbage will be served. The Scandinavian Cafe also will make crepes, fresh-grilled lefse and pea soup.

More lefse: Rounds of lefse (that’s potato flatbread for you Norwegian neophytes) will be sold in packages of three. The Sons of Norway will sell julekake, the Christmas bread.

Craft sale: Nordic craft items include handmade jewelry, sweaters, painted items (called rosemaling), as well as bakeware, books and more.

Entertainment: Normanna Men’s Chorus (10:30 a.m.), Embla Lodge dancers (11:30 a.m.), a gammelnorsk band (12:30) and accordion player Dick Myking (1:30 p.m.).

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What the heck is a sandbakkel? Find out Saturday."