Kransekake

Norway’s kransekake is a celebration cake made with almonds, powdered sugar and egg whites. Rings of different sizes are baked one by one and stacked from the largest upward to form a tower. White icing traces waves on each tier, and flags or paper decorations are sometimes added. At tables where people gather, such as weddings, baptisms, Christmas and Constitution Day on May 17, the tall stack of rings adds a festive touch to the occasion.

Making Rings from Almonds, Sugar and Egg Whites

MatPrat’s recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method) uses 500 grams each of almonds and powdered sugar. Half of the nuts are soaked in hot water and skinned, while the rest are kept in their skins, and all are dried well before grinding. The fine brown flecks that remain in the pale dough come from this choice about the skins.

The egg whites are not whipped into large bubbles but added little by little until the dough reaches a workable firmness. The dough is chilled to let it settle, rolled into ropes about as thick as a finger, and closed into circles. Unlike in baked goods based mainly on wheat flour or butter, here the egg whites blend with the fat of the nuts and the sugar, and their stickiness creates a dough that can be shaped into rings.

Stacking Large and Small Rings of Even Thickness

Special molds have circular grooves of different diameters. Because the ropes are kept at the same thickness and only their length changes when the rings are closed, the upper and lower tiers also come out at nearly the same thickness. In this recipe, the rings are baked briefly in an oven at about 200°C, cooled in the mold, and removed once they are firm enough to lift.

When icing made from powdered sugar and egg white is piped in zigzags and the rings are stacked, the white lines stand out against the dark baked color, and the spacing between tiers also becomes visible. The height comes not from baking a whole cake tall in one piece, but from assembling rings that leave a hollow inside. Even when the outside is baked into a thin, firm crust, the inside keeps a sticky, chewy texture. Because the whole cake hardens as it dries, airtight storage is also important, and the rings can also be frozen and assembled in time for a celebration.

Kransekake with white icing piped onto large and small rings. The structure of stacked rings is visible. Photo: Jonathunder, 2008-01-19, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Reduced-size version from the source, no additional processing.

Towers, Baskets and Horns of Plenty

The same dough can also be shaped into sticks or horseshoes. Reversing the stacking order and adding a base and a handle makes a basket that can hold fruit or small sweets. Kransekage, the related Danish confection, also includes the horn-shaped overflødighedshorn, in which the rings are stacked in a different direction.

The food-culture historian Bi Skaarup explains this “horn of plenty” as a symbol of abundance and happiness. It is filled with small kransekage, showing sweets spilling from its mouth. Whether as a tower topped with a flag or figurines or as a horn assembled on its side, the same rings serve both as a symbol of celebration and as a container.

A horn of plenty assembled from rings laid on their side, with marzipan decorations and small sweets. Photo: Dextline, 2010-02-07, location unknown. Original image / CC0. Hohum cropped the original photo and adjusted its brightness; the reduced-size version from the source is used, with no additional processing.

Ring Templates Used Before Metal Molds

Hanna Winsnes’s cookbook from the mid-19th century describes drawing rings on paper, cutting them out, and shaping the rings along these templates. Even before special metal molds existed, people matched the sizes of the circles to build towers. The alternative name tårnkake means “tower cake.” To stack the rings high, the thickness of the ropes and the size of the circles are measured and matched.

In a general history, Skaarup suggests that the old marzipan confection probably acquired this new form in the late 18th century. This is her conjecture about when it changed from marzipan into its present form of stacked rings.

Rings Shared at Celebrations, and Wedding Fortune-Telling

From Norwegian weddings and Constitution Day to New Year’s Eve in Denmark, cakes of stacked rings appear at a variety of celebrations across national borders. At a festive table, if pieces are broken off from the large rings at the bottom and handed out to guests, the tower keeps its shape while gradually becoming lower. In an old wedding custom passed on by a Norwegian immigrant cultural organization, the bride and groom lifted the top ring, and the number of rings that came up with it was used to foretell how many children they would have. It is a regionally transmitted wedding custom that makes use of the cake’s stacked-ring form.

Kransekake served at a county event in Minnesota, USA, with stacked rings and Norwegian flags. Photo: Jonathunder, 2008-08-02, Rochester, Minnesota, USA. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Reduced-size version from the source, no additional processing.

Small New Year’s Eve Sweets Made from Marzipan

The ingredients of almonds, sugar and egg whites are also close to those of marzipan. However, shaping an unbaked paste differs from baking the dough as rings or sticks and assembling them, both in how the shape is made and in the texture. Using nuts with their skins leaves colored flecks, unlike a uniform whiteness.

In a recipe from Arla in Denmark, instead of grinding nuts, powdered sugar and egg whites are kneaded into ready-made marzipan. When this is shaped into short ovals, baked and finished with thin lines of white icing, the sweets can be served on New Year’s Eve or at festive tables without being built into a tall tower. The company also offers a method in which the ring dough is chilled for a day before shaping, as well as recipes with nougat, pistachio or jam inside. The ingredients and the white decoration are carried over, while the form of the sweet can be changed to suit the celebration.

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