Kransekage
A tower of marzipan rings baked until chewy and glazed with white icing, the Danish celebration cake for New Year and weddings.
Photograph credit: Kransekake (image of Kransekake on Wikidata Q29326) by Kjetil Ree · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Compare it with a layer cake and you find a different idea of celebration: a tower of marzipan rings, stacked from the largest at the bottom to the smallest at the top, and broken apart with the fingers. Kransekage is the Danish cake for New Year, weddings and other big events, made of almonds, sugar and egg white and nothing else.
Grind blanched almonds finely, mix them with icing sugar, and knead in the egg whites to a thick, sticky dough. The dough should be firm enough to roll but slightly tacky. Rest it in the fridge for 1 hour so it is easier to handle, and roll it between floured hands into ropes of different lengths. Join each rope into a ring with a dab of water, graded in size from 8 cm to 25 cm.
Bake the rings on lined trays at 180°C / 355°F for about 20 to 25 minutes, until pale gold. They should be chewy in the middle, so do not overbake. Cool completely. Mix icing sugar with egg white and lemon juice, pipe it in zigzags over each ring and stack them into a tower, with the largest on the bottom. Serve by breaking off the rings.
What People Ask
How long does Kransekage take to make?
30 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking, plus 1 hour of Chilling, so allow 1 hour 55 minutes from start to finish. The method also needs time for cooling completely, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 12.
The Method for Kransekage
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Mix the almonds and 500 g icing sugar. Knead in the 3 egg whites to a firm, slightly sticky dough. Chill for 1 hour.
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Heat the oven to 180°C / 355°F and line trays. With floured hands roll the dough into ropes and join them into 12 rings of graded sizes from 8 to 25 cm.
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Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until pale gold. Cool completely on the trays.
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Mix the 150 g icing sugar, the egg white and lemon juice and pipe in zigzags over each ring.
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Stack the rings into a tower, largest at the bottom, and serve by breaking them apart.
Worth Getting Right
- Chill the dough for an hour.
- Do not overbake the rings.
- Cool them fully before icing.
What to Serve With It
Sparkling wine · Coffee · Tea
Storage
Keeps for 2 weeks in a tin.
Kransekage Nutrition
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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