What is a Kransekake
Over the Christmas season, this was my best discovery and successful bake: a beautiful Kransekake. A Kransekake is a traditional Scandinavian confection, eaten on special occasions. Translated to English, it means a “Wreath Cake” and you can easily see why.
I first read about a Kransekake in a beautiful Scandinavian Christmas book by Bronte Aurell. The recipe itself isn’t very demanding and needs very few ingredients. The only special equipment a Kransekake needs is a Kransekake mould that you can find on Amazon. If you’re looking to start a new Christmas tradition, or wow your guests, impress your kids (yes, I love scoring brownie points with them every now and then) or have had terrible luck with making a gingerbread house, a Kransekake is the answer to all of the above. Moderate effort, impressive results.
Ingredients for this cake
When I say a Kransekake needs only a few ingredients, I really mean it. You only need 5 ingredients, in total to make the cake and the icing. Icing sugar, almond flour, egg whites, and essence.
With almond flour, I use unblanched almond flour, which works perfectly fine
What does a Kransekake taste like
Delicious, obviously. Honestly, though, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of taste and texture with a kransekake, because I’ve never had one. But having made it a couple of times and having it turn out with the same texture twice, I can say it tastes like a chewy almond biscuit and it’s definitely moreish
The origins of a Kransekake
This cake has its origins in Denmark and Norway. Typically a celebration cake, it’s commonly used as a centrepiece for many occasions and not just Christmas. It is often used as the celebratory cake at weddings, baptisms or even birthdays.
The mould for a Kransekake generally makes about 18 concentric circles in decreasing order that you stack one over the other. The “glue” to put the cake together is royal icing, made in a rather thick consistency that is also used to decorate each layer. Although known as a cake, in all ways, a Kransekake is a kind of cookie that is chewy and comes with a subtle taste of almond.
A delicious wreath cake made with rings of almond cookies
Ingredients
500 gms almond flour
500 gms icing sugar
4 egg whites
1 tsp almond extract
Oil for greasing
Semolina for dusting the moulds
- To assemble and decorate
1 cup royal icing
Dragee and edible glitter
Directions
- In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except the oil and semolina and make a dough
- Cover the bowl with clingfilm and keep the dough refrigerated for 2 hours or overnight
- Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Lightly oil the Kransekake mould and dust with semolina
- Use portions of dough and roll each piece into long ribbons, and place in each mould
- Squish the ends together when you place the dough in the mould
- Bake in a preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. Let the rings cool in the mould, and they will firm up
- Assemble the rings one over the other, starting with the largest ring at the bottom and the smallest one on the top
- Use dots of royal icing to make the rings stick to one another and to decorate the Kransekake once assembled
- You can use dragee, gold dust or sprinkles to decorate
