It's a bird, it's a plane, its a cookie beehive!
Okay, it's not a cookie beehive.
It's a Kransekaka.
Not a kreme-de-la-kaka. Not a krala-la-lala. Not a krans-a-what-do-you-call-it.
It actually has several spellings: Kransekaka/Kransekake/Kransekage
It has several translations: Scandinavian wreath cake, Danish/Norweigan wedding cake, ring cake, ring tree cake, or ring pyramid cake.
What is a Kransekaka really? It's a concentric ring of stacked, iced almond cookies.
It tastes like a French Macaroon. However, unlike a macaroon, you can hide a half bottle of wine or liquor under this little beauty. It's from Scandinavia, so it's beige. Like the other Scandinavian foods I remember: Sandbakkels, Rosettes, Krumkake, Lefse, and Swedish Meatballs. All beige. I'm not saying Scandinavian only eat beige foods. No no no. They just have a lot of them.
Traditionally it is made in Scandinavia for special occasions (mostly weddings, but it is not strictly a wedding cake). It's decorated with flags. You are supposed to take off the top tiers to reveal the wine bottle. Then serve the largest rings first, breaking into pieces. If there is no bottle, obviously you can serve it top down.
As I mentioned in blogs past, I'm a Minnesota native. Minnesota is full of hockey loving, beige colored food eating, blue eyed, blonde haired Scandinavians. So it was typical for me to go in a local bakery (even some grocery store bakeries) and see a pretty, beige kransekaka in the display window. My sisters and all had them at our weddings. Now I live in Missouri. I brought one of these suckers to a party and suddenly people are perplexed. What's that?!?
The one I made above was for a medal party. A friend of mine is a two time, bronze medal winner for paralympics in track. So I made her a kransekaka for her party because:
A. It's circular, like the medals she just won in London.
(I am an occupational therapist, and we just love themes.)
B. She was finally eating sugar again.
C. It's awesome.
Okay! On to making one.
First you need the tins. Technically you could make them without the tins, but I think it would be hard to judge the sizes. You get them online. One place is through Ingebretsen's Scandinavian Gifts, which is a shop in Minneapolis that I love going to.
I have two recipes: my Grandma's (well her friend Bertha's) and the one from the box of tins (which is gluten and dairy free by the way)
Bertha's Ring Tree Cake (Kransekake)
2 c butter, softened
1 8oz can almond paste, cut into chunks
2 c sifted powdered sugar
2 tsp almond extract
4 egg yolks, beaten
5c flour
Icing (recipe follows)
Preheat the oven 350 degrees. Grease the tins. Using an electric mixed, blend together butter, almond paste, sugar and almond extract until smooth. Beat 4 eggs in well. Measure flour and then sift. Add flour in gradually. With your hands roll 1/2 inch diameter strands of dough (width of index finger) or use a pastry bag with #6 tube. Place in well greased tins. Bake 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until delicately browned. Prepare frosting and place into pastry bag. Place rings on a plate. Assemble the cake by starting with the largest ring, frosting as you go, and stacking one on top of the other.
Frosting:
1 c powdered sugar
2 tbsp whipping cream
2 tbsp vanilla
*Tips: I use either a food processor a stick blender to make the initial dough (before the flour). Then I use a hand mixer to mix in the flour. Then I use a cookie press with a pastry holder (no tip) to get the dough in the tins. It's easier. Trust me.
Kransekage
3 c almond paste
1 1/2c granulated sugar
3 egg whites, slightly beaten
Break almond paste into small chunks, add sugar and egg whites. Mix thoroughly with an electric mixer (or food processor/stick blender). Fill a pastry bag with a number 6 tip. Grease the tins (really well). Bake 325 degrees for 20 minutes until surface is crusty and golden brown. Remove cookie from the rings as soon as they are cooled. Use the point of a knife to loosen the outer edge of the cake ring and then loosen the inner edge. It will come out if baked thoroughly.
Frosting
1 egg white
3-4 drops vinegar
confectioner's sugar to make a thin icing
Mix ingredients until smooth and well blended. Place icing in decorating bag with icing tip. Starting with the largest ring, make drizzels and scallops on the top/sides, stack the next size ring on the top and repeat.
Now Bake That!
Most years we host Rosh Hashana dinner. I decided this year to make an apple pie and a chocolate banana cream pie. For those who don't know the holiday, it's Jewish New Year and one of the things we do is apple and honey.
For the apple pie, I used Barefoot Contessa's Deep Dish Apple Pie and Perfect Pie Crust. Once again, I had the same issue as last month, not enough filling. I should've bought more Granny Smith apples! I decided to go back into my fridge and grab whatever apples I had on hand, honeycrisp apples. It seemed like a cute idea with the whole apple and honey theme. However, I overdid and then had TOO much filling. I grabbed my tiny pie pan. Unfortunately I didn't have enough extra crust to make a top crust so I grabbed my Better Home and Garden's New Cook Book and used the topping from the Apple crisp recipe. The apple pies were...okay. I won't ever use honeycrisp again. The pie filling was sorta like chunky applesauce. I still served it, but with lots of ice cream.
The banana cream pie recipe from Sugarcrafter's blog. I picked it because it had whole pieces of banana and not banana flavored pudding or something. I like bananas, just not artificially flavored banana. Though I baked it as directed, this pie never set up for me. The idea of runny chocolate pie was, to say it nicely, unappetizing. I tried to make it better by mixing the filling all up and then popping it in the refrigerator to set. But now it looked like brown liquid in a pie shell. Ew.
I was so disappointed since this has happened several times to me with cream pies. I didn't even bother serving it at dinner. Instead, I made some magic brownies and people adored them. Whew!
I also made round challah bread. However, I will feature that recipe another time.
Now Bake That! (but only with granny smith apples)
and that!
and that!
Remember that song? Peaches by The Presidents of the United States of America? The chorus goes: Millions of peaches. Peaches for me. Millions of peaches. Peaches for free. That was in my head as I made this pie for sunny August.
Last month I tried a different pie crust recipe from Cook's Illustrated (their foolproof pie crust recipe). After being fully annoyed with all the millions of steps for that recipe, I went back to Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Pie Crust. It works for me and tastes wonderful. For the peach pie filling, I used the recipe from another blog Joy of Baking.
What I was trying new this month was to make a star pattern with the top crust. I did it by cutting the shapes while it was still folded in half with a diamond shaped cookie cutter. It stretched all weird. My other issue? There wasn't enough filling and sunk and oozes on the top. However, the pie tasted wonderful. Plus ice cream covers up the messy crust and no one is the wiser. Just peachy!
Now Bake That!
My husband went to college with Sandy, a cousin of Steve Stricker. For non-sports fans, Steve is a pro golfer. The only reason I knew of him was because I spent my childhood watching the "lawn show" with my dad. Little white balls. Guys in baseball hats and polo shirts twisting with sticks. Miles and miles of grass.
The monster cookies are her family's recipe. She was cool enough to share when she found out I was a home baker. I'm picky about peanut butter cookies, but add oatmeal and m & m's and I was on board. Anyway, I had a hankering for them because she came to town with her family and we met up with them to go to the zoo. That next day, I had to make them. You know. HAD TO. Again, my apologies for no recipe. It's not mine to share.
What's better than magical brownies? Itty bitty magical brownies. I talked about these Magic Brownies in February. I thought, "Oh, this will be easy, I will just use tiny cupcake paper cups and just lower the amount of cooking time!" Wrong. Now they were delicious. Yeah. They stuck to the paper. Like really stuck. So you had to scrape the gooey brownie yumminess off the paper with your teeth. I think spraying the paper like I spray the parchment paper would have been a good idea. Next time right?
Cherries are my favorite summer fruit. I mean all time favorite. I cringe when I pay $4 a pound for it, but I think it's worth it. Worth it enough to dedicate a pie to it in Sweet July.
Pitting the cherries was the adventure. I can't remember where I learned this tip, but if you don't have a cherry pitter (an undesirable uni-tasker according to Alton Brown) you can go MacGyver! I used a water bottle (a wine bottle would be good too) and a chop stick. I wore gloves too because squirting cherry juice everywhere was unavoidable. You stab the cherry firmly and the pit pops out the bottom. It worked...okay. I think a cherry pitter would have been faster.
I loved the sunshine cut out so much from June's pie, I did it again with this month.
The new thing I tried was a new crust recipe. When I was visiting my sister we were watching Cook's Illustrated Test Kitchen together and they demonstrated their Foolproof Pie Dough recipe. I have two Cook's Illustrated cookbooks and a pile of their magazines, so I hunted for the recipe when I got home.
The pie turned out great!
Bad news: this crust recipe was annoying. There are tons of steps. The dough was in and out of the fridge so many times. I am tired just writing about it. Also, the dough is extremely wet so you have to use tons of flour to get it to the correct consistency. They say it's foolproof. Maybe it is. It certainly tasted and looked good. However, it was not anxiety proof. I am going back to the Barefoot Contessa next month.
Now Bake That!
No,no. I didn't beat up my husband and made him black and blue on his birthday. Since my husband doesn't care much for cake, I offered to let him pick the pie of the month. He picked blackberry and blueberry. Happy Birthday to Dave!
Instead of lattice style I wanted to try a hole cut out and then did slits to make a sunshine design. It was fun!
I used the same Barefoot Contessa Perfect Pie Crust Recipe.
The pie filling I used All Recipes Again: Blackberry and Blueberry Pie
Comments:
The new thing I tried
this time was to protect the crust edges, instead of cutting strips of
foil and arching it around the crust, I did something else. I read to
make two large sheets of foil and make a + and lay it on the counter.
Place the pie in the center and then wrap the edges of the pie from the
outside. It was a lot easier and they didn't fall off!
As you can see, it leaked. I was nervous that if I undercooked and under-filled it, it would be runny and/or sunk in the center. Anxiety has its price with baking. The pie was wonderful (though I still think my strawberry rhubarb is still the best so far!).
Now Bake That!
