Kransekage is a traditional cake served at New Year's Eve at midnight with champagne, at weddings (back in the days) or at special occasions. I like kransekage with a sweet champagne, because the sweetness of the cake makes the champagne very sour. Served with coffee it is actually perfect, but not very festive.

Kransekage is made from Marzipan, an almonds paste, sugar, almonds and egg whites.

Kransekage:

100 g almonds blanched or ¾ cup slivered almonds
200 g (1 cup) sugar
2 egg whites
500 g marzipan (I used Ren Rå, a 60% almond paste)

Icing:

confectionary sugar
water

Directions:

Put almonds and sugar into food processor with the steel blade in place and process until finely pulverized. Add the egg whites and process until smooth. Be careful not to heat the mass to more than 95 - 104°F, else the egg white will cook.

Shred the marzipan and add it and the almond/egg white mixture to a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat it until it's completely smooth and free of lumps. Form the dough into a ball, and refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

Preheat oven for 375℉ (190℃).

Divide dough in 4. Roll each part into a 45 cm (18 inch) long sausage. Wet your fingers with a little water and gently press each log into a rounded triangle, continue to wet fingers as needed but careful not to get dough too wet.

For a kransekage top you'll need these lengths:

7 cm (2 3/4 inches) to make the top ball.
8 cm (3 1/6 inches)
12 cm (4 3/4 inches)
16 cm (6 1/3 inches)
20 cm (7 7/8 inches)
24 cm (9 1/2 inches)
28 cm (11 inches)
32 cm (12 2/3 inches)

Form the rings on a baking sheet lines with parchment paper. Level the top of the rings by putting a baking sheet on top. Don't press to hard.

Bake for about 12 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool completely.

Put the icing on the baked rings. Start with the biggest. Make sure to put the next on top of it before the icing is dried. Or glue the rings together with small dots of icing.

Decorate the kransekage with flags and confetti.

Notes:

You can use tempered chocolate instead of the icing.

Edit.

This year, I weighed opted for another approach.
Making a 10 tiered top, I used 4 X 165g of the dough and rolled then into 4 x45 cm logs. + 1 x 81 g for one 22 cm log.

The logs were then cut into these lengths:

8 cm
10½ cm
13 cm
15½ cm
18 cm
20½ cm
23 cm
25½ cm
28 cm
30½ cm