Kransekage - Danish Almond Wedding Cake

Kransekage - Danish Almond Wedding Cake.

For me this is not a wedding cake, but a New Years Eve cake. Most Danes celebrates New Year by drinking champagne and eating kransekage. This year I decided to make numbers instead of the traditional top.

You get the best cake by using a mazipan/almond paste with more than 63% almonds, otherwise the cake will flatten, and flow out during the baking, masking a cookie.

Kransekage should be crispy outside and a soft inside.

Happy New Year from Copenhagen Denmark.

Makes about 100 cm kransekage (6 rings and the top ball)

Ingredients:

Kransekage:

• 75g almonds blanched or ¾ cup slivered almonds

• 150 g (1 cup) sugar

• 1½ (48 g) egg whites

• 375 g marzipan, use Ren Rå marcipan or this Almond Paste

Icing:

• confectionary sugar (powdered sugar)

• egg white

• 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 to 375℉ (190℃).

Weigh out 400 g Doug and roll it into a 70 cm log. By during this, you will get the perfect size kransekage, whether. you make pieces, a number cake or a top.
Bake the kransekage for 12 minutes or on til golden brown.

With the palm of your hand gently press each log into a rounded triangle. You can wet you hands a little so the dough won’t stick to your hands.

Form the logs into circles on the parchment paper. Make sure to connect the ends really well.

Cutting the log up making rings.

For the numbers you need 12 cm + 4 cm for the number 2. and 22 cm for the number 0.

If you make a top, you start with 7 cm, and roll it into a ball. For the next ring add 2 cm, so you form a ring out og the 9 cm piece. For each remaing ring add another 2 cm, this will make a perfect top. With this amount of dough, you can make a top with 6 rings and a top ball. (7 cm, 9 cm, 11 cm, 13 cm, 15cm , 17 cm, 19 cm )

A trick to making Danish Kransekage, is to make the rings tall. When you cut the rings or pieces is should be in the shape of a triangle.

Here you see the shape of rings or pieces cut through.

Don’t use the kransekage pans, the rings will become rounded on the bottom, and harder to stack. Shape the kransekage with your hands.

Bake the kransekage on parchment paper, on a double baking sheet, this will prevent the bottom from burning.

Mix the powdered sugar with egg white and water.

When making the icing, it should be thick, not runny at all. Put the icing in a piping bag, cut a tiny tiny hole in the bag. I use half water and half egg whites for the icing.

When piping the icing shouldn't be runny. You almost place the thin line of icing on the kransekage. the piping take time, don't rush it.

If you make a top place the rings on top of each other, lifting the rings with your fingers like hooks inside the rings. Glue the rings together with small dots of icing.

Enjoy!

Pleated Christmas Heart Cookies

Pleated Christmas heart cookies

The pleaded or weaved heart is quintessential Christmas for Danes. The pleaded Christmas heart is said to contributed to the Danish Storyteller H.C. Andersen. The oldest known heart is kept at The H.C. Andersen Museum in Odense. As a child we learned to make pleaded Christmas hearts, and we placed them on the Christmas tree. Last year I saw someone make cookies like the pleaded hearts, I knew I wanted to make some. I took offset in the checkerboard cookies, and replacing the cocoa with food coloring.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 340 g butter, salted and room temperature

• 200 g confectionary sugar (powder sugar)

• 90 g almonds, bleached and grounded

• 2 egg yolk

• 2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• 500 g all-purpose flour

• Red food gel coloring, for the red part of the dough

DIRECTIONS:

Cream the butter until soft and creamy. Add the confectionery sugar, mix until fully combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the ground almonds, egg yolks, vanilla and flour, and mix until just blended. Be careful not to over mix the dough. Remove half of the dough, and mix the other half with red food coloring, until you get a bright red. I used Christmas red Wilton gel color, and I had to use most of the little jar, to get the right color. Wrap the doughs in plastic film and places dough in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, so the butter firms up, making it easier top work with.

Divide each color in 2, rolling one half into a log with a 1-inch (3 cm) diameter. The other half form it into flat squares. Cover the log and square in plastic wrap, and put it back in the refrigerator. Roll each flat square of the dough out between 2 pieces of parchment paper, to a little under ⅓-inch (9 mm) thickness. Place the dough on a baking sheet, and place it back in the refrigerator for about 1 hour.

Assemble the cookies:

Remove one of  the doughs from the refrigerator, peel off the paper from both sides and set the dough onto a fresh sheet of parchment. Using a sharp knife, slice the dough lengthwise into square strips about ⅓ inch (9 mm) wide. Place the dough strips in the refrigerator, while repeating the other dough.

Remove dough strips from the refrigerator. Lay a strip of the white dough lengthwise on the baking sheet, then lay a strip of red dough next to the white, another strip of white and finally another red, so you now have 4 strips alternating colors. Press the three strips gently together so that they stick to one another. You can brush the sides with some diluted apricot preserve, to help the dough glue together.

Do this with the rest of the strips, so you end up with logs of striped cookie dough.  Place the logs on top of each other, so the red dough and white dough alternates and you have  4x4 colors per log.

Gently press the logs together on all sides. Wrap the log with plastic wrap, a place in the refrigerator.   Make more logs with the remaining dough.

Take out the round logs, an cut them in half lengthwise. Firmly press 1 red and 1 white half log on top of the 4x4 colored logs. Placing them on to sides next to each other. Now you have a pleated hearty, when you cut the log in slices.

Chill the logs for at least an hour before slicing.

Preheat the oven to 375℉ (190℃). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Slice into cookies about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. Set the hearts about ½-inch (1 cm) apart on the baking sheet and bake for about 7-8 minutes, until the withe parts are very lightly browned. If your oven is baking unevenly rotate the sheet halfway through. Cool on the parchment paper on a wire rack. 

Store the completely cooled cookies in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

Blueberry & White Chocolate Scones

Blueberry & White Chocolate Scones

I love scones, especially when they are light and fluffy. Maybe it’s wrong, to talk about a light scone, given they contain a lot of butter and cream 😁 But these feel very light.

Makes 8 scones.

Ingredients:

• 300 g all-purpose flour

• 50 g sugar

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• 60 g butter, salted and room temperature

• 150 g blueberries

• 125 g white chocolate, coarsely chopped, I used Valrhona

• 190 ml heavy whipping cream + extra for brushing

• 1 egg

• coarse sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

Add the dry ingredients and the vanilla in a mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands or the paddle attachment (flat beater), until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. Gently mix in the blueberries and chocolate. Place the mixture in the refrigerator for 30-40 minutes to cool completely.

Preheat the oven to 355℉ (180℃), and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk the egg into the heavy whipping cream. Pour the mixture into a well in the cooled dry ingredients. Gently mix the dough with a fork, until just mixed together. Be careful not to overmix. Pour the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Use your finger to gently press the dough into a disc 8-inch (20 cm) in diameter and about 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick. Slice the disc into 8 wedges, and place them on the prepared baking sheet about 1-inch apart. Brush each wedge with cold cream, and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake the scones for 22-25 minutes until they a light golden.

Let the scones cool for about 15 minutes before sinking your teeth into them.

Enjoy!

Almond Horn - Nøddehorn

Almond horns - Mandelhorn

These horns are one of my husbands favorites, and somehow I just got around to bake them today. It took a pandemic before I made these for him. Poor guy.

This is basically a kransekage rolled in sliced almonds and dipped in chocolate, so what's not to like??

The horns do freeze well, but defrost them slowly in the refrigerator.

Makes 12.

Ingredients:

• 400 g almond paste (marzipan or almond paste with more than 60% almonds)

• 100 g confectionary sugar (powdered sugar)

• 1 egg white

• 75-100 g sliced almonds

• dark chocolate (tempered)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃).

Mix almond paste, sugar, and egg whites well. Roll the ‘dough’ into 2 logs the size of a thick thumb. Cut each log into 6 pieces. Somehow I ended up with only 11 🤷‍♀️

Roll each pice in sliced almonds, bend them slightly and place them on a parchment paper lined baking pan.

Bake the horns for 12 -15 minutes until they a very light golden. Let the horns cool down on a wirerack before dipping the ends in tempered chocolate.

Enjoy!

Gingerbread Reindeers

One of the thing I remember from baking Christmas cookies with my mom, were making gingerbread men, women or pretty much all kinds of shapes. And the part where we got to decorate them with colorful icing. But I never thought to be this creative, turning the gingerbread man upside down, making a reindeer.

Makes a lot.

INGREDIENTS:

• 125 g butter

• 200 g dark syrup or molasses

• 150 g brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom

• 3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ¼ teaspoon ground all-spice

• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

• 2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1 egg

• 500 g all-purpose flour

Decorating:

• 150 g confectionary (powdered) sugar

• 1 egg white

• a spinkle og cream of tartar

• food coloring

DIRECTIONS:

Melt butter, syrup/molasses and brown sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat, and stir in baking soda and spices. Let the syrup cool down for a bit, before you add egg and flour. 

Add syrup to a stand mixer, and mix in the egg and flour and keep mixing until you have a smooth and shiny dough. 

Let the dough rest in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, before rolling out.

Preheat the oven to 355 ℉ (180℃).

Roll out the dough on a floured surface. The dough needs to be about 0.1-0.2-inch (3-5 mm) thick. Cut out the small gingerbread men and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. 

Bake the cookies for about 5 minutes, and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Royal Icing: 

Put all the ingredients in the bowl of the stand mixer. Whip the icing for 2 minutes, until it has an uniform consistency and is crisp white color. It starts off with a grayish hue.

Decoration:

Decorate the gingerbread men upside down like a reindeer with brown and white icing, red mini m&m's for the nose.