Kransekake for beginners or short on time

December 11th

Kransekake, Norway's celebration cake

I have written several times about Norway's famous celebration cake, Kransekake and many who have tried it in our home have loved it.  It is however not a cake that many non-Norwegians seem to want to tackle.  I have pondered this many a time and I can only think that to create the rings we use special moulds and for the occasional, I'll give it a try to see if I can do it, baker, why would you want to buy a set of kraneskake ring moulds?  So I have come up with a solution and as with most things in life, it is a compromise.  You can make a kransekake, but it won't be in the format of the ring cake!  [If you really really want to make it in a ring shape and do not want to buy the moulds, I did write a post a few years ago as to how you could attempt it, Kransekake without the ring moulds ]

So today I share with you the 4th of the 7 biscuits for Christmas.  We are making the cake but in effect, we are making it in long stick shapes which would come under the heading cookies, think of it if you will as the Norwegian version of Ammeretto biscuits you would have after dinner with a coffee or liqueur.  When a kransekake is made this way, that is exactly how you have it, with a coffee or a tipple.  A burst of sweetness in your day.

Grinding almonds

Kransekake stang ~ Kransekake sticks

Pre heat oven to 170C
You will need:

500g ground almonds, ground preferably with skin still on, this adds to the colour
500g icing sugar
2 egg whites


icing sugar for decoration ~ optional


Mix the ground almonds ( I ground mine, but for a quick cake, just buy bought ground almonds) and icing sugar thoroughly together.



Add one egg white at a time, trying to bring the dry ingredients together.  This is a sticky task.  I tend to begin with a wooden spoon and end up using my hands to form the dough.  you want it to be forming a ball but not too sticky!

The mixture should just come
together, do not let it get too wet

Divide the mixture up into about 20 sections.  Roll each out of a slightly icing sugar-dusted work surface.  Alternatively, you can pipe this mixture, it is quite dense, so this may be difficult.  I have a metal piping tube which is ideal for this and I use the star-shaped nozzle.

Each roll should form a sausage about the thickness of an adults finger.

Place each sausage on a lined baking tray.

I tend to make each sausage about 8-10 cm long.

Trying to keep them as even and uniform looking as possible.

Rows of kransekake
sticks ready to be baked

The mixture will not swell so you can place these sausage 'sticks' fairly tightly on the tray.  There should be enough mixture to make about 40 lengths of the baking tray.

Bake in the oven at 170C for about 10 mins, but check as you do not want them to burn.  They should only very subtly change to a slightly darker colour. Leave to cool in situ for a few minutes as at this stage they are very fragile and will crumble.  Then cool on a wire rack.

Store in an airtight jar and they will last for a couple of weeks.  Alternatively, they freeze very well for up to a month.  Just remember to defrost thoroughly before use. Freezing them has the added bonus of making them quite chewy which most Norwegians love.

A trick my mother taught me many years ago to add the soft chewiness, almost meringue type chewiness we are talking about here, not toffee type chewiness.  Is to add one or two slives of bead into the airtight tin for a few hours.  this seems to miraculously transform the kransekake from a brittle and hard (still delicious) consistency to a softer chewier one!

Keep in an airtight jar and they will last for a couple of weeks

These make great small parcels to be given away as gifts

♥  Have you made any of  the biscuits 

I have shared over the years?  ♥

Almond cookies Christmas Cookies 6

December 17th

Almond cookies and mulled wine

Christmas must literally be around the corner as somehow we are already on Cookie making number 6 during Advent.  By now you may have realised that Scandinavians love there ground spices in their Kransekake
cookies and they also love using nuts most especially almonds.  The below cookie is actually variation of the Norwegian Celebration cake made for special occasions, Christmas included.  I shall be making mine next week, for a peep at what a Kransekake is, click here ~

Almond Cookies

MAKES ABOUT 24 ~ begin the day before you want to make the cookies

blanched almonds 100g 
caster sugar 200g 

After adding egg whites the mixture is quite runny

egg whites 2
homemade marzipan (see below) 500g
walnut halves 24
dried apricots 6
tempered dark chocolate 200g

For the homemade marzipan: [or you can buy good quality ready made]
blanched almonds 500g 
icing sugar 100g, plus extra for kneading 
water 50ml



If making marzipan:
Whizz the blanched almonds in a food processor until they are finely ground.  Add in sifted icing sugar and a small amount of the water a bit at a time. You do not want the mixture to be sticky.  Place the marzipan in the fridge for about an hour or alternatively in the freezer for 15 minutes.  

Grate the marzipan

To make the almond cookies, whizz the almonds and sugar together in a food processor until finely ground. Add the egg whites and whizz again until you have a smooth, white mixture. Make sure the mixture does not get too hot in the processor, otherwise the egg whites start clotting.  

Now grate the marzipan and then blend it into the almond mixture  If the marzipan is soft

this becomes a nightmare of stickiness so do make sure it is good and hard before beginning. 

Transfer the mixture to a bowl, cover tightly and leave to rest in the fridge for a couple of hours or until the next day.

Shape the mixture into 24 rectangular cakes about 2cm wide and 6cm long, like shortbread fingers. 

Divide the dough into quarters and roll
each one into a log shape

Slice each log/quarter into six

Photo for size purposes

Press a walnut half on to one end of each almond finger, and two strips of dried apricot on to the other end.

Add walnut and apricot before baking

Preheat the oven to 190C. Place the shortbread fingers on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for 15-18 minutes. In my oven they took about 12 minutes.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.  

Melt the chocolate gently in a double boiler, then dip the bottom of each almond cake in the chocolate and leave to set on a piece of baking paper.  Eat and enjoy.

Adding the chocolate to the ends just adds the finishing touch

Eat & Enjoy ♥

♥  Hope life is not too stressful

 and you can enjoy the season too  ♥

An eclectic five

September 16th

Waking up to the loudest thunder crack at 3 am does nothing for my beauty sleep nor my poor old

Fire brigade looking after us in the village

ticker.  It took some minutes before I realised that it was just a rain storm passing through and took even longer for my heart to completely calm down.  But wow what a storm, it is still raging now and our wonderful local fire brigade are out there trying to clear the drains and stop our properties from flooding.  Driving John to the station this morning took Olympic driving skills, wishing I had a car I could raise by a couple of feet too. Hope everyone is OK out here in our neck of the woods.  Did you know you can track where lighting strikes, quite fascinating.  You can zoom in on the map and see local to you, but here I show the entire UK map for lightening strikes between the hours of 3-6 am, just look!!

Lightening strikes in the UK on 16/09/16 between 3 - 6 am

To have a look at the site yourself click Lightening maps

It's unbelievable really when you think how wonderful the last few days have been, almost Mediterranean, as I walked out of the supermarket last night a wall of warmth enveloped me and I love it.  I suppose thunderstorms after heat like that are very Tuscan.  Did you see the red sun setting last night?  It was truly glorious and of course my photos did not do it justice but another weatherman I follow on Facebook snapped a great shot yesterday at Oxford station, just look at the colour of the sky, no photo editing here, promise, it just did not need it...

Pink sky at night in Oxford photo by Oxfordshire Weather Watch

Life has been continually hectic here in this eclectic home and all of my own doing, my feet have not touched the ground and I could actually really rather do without this rain today as I have a garden party tomorrow for 25 celebrating pappa's 80th, wish me luck with the weather.  As is always the case for family celebration a kransekake has to be made.  It's made and the icing is done just the final decorations need to be added later today but so far it look like this:

Baking the kransekake

Ready to be boxed up before final decoration

To find out what this cake is and how to make it follow the link:  Kransekake

I have been travelling again, I knew the travel itch was still scratching so we had a sneaky 4 days away last week in Russia.  It was truly amazing and I was blown away by the architecture, the history and the warmth of the Russian people, sneak peak at a couple of photos ahead of a Russian post...

The Church of the Spilled Blood, possibly one
of my all time favourite buildings

Just look at the detail of the interior

 And let's not forget a crafting girl has to travel with her crochet after all and in the spirit (see what I did there!) of travelling to Russia had to partake of some vodka!

Hope you have enjoyed my 5 for today, I look forward to popping along through out the week and reading all your posts too, forgive me if it takes a while I have a party to plan and cater for and then to recover from!  Joining in with the lovely Amy ...

♥There is no such thing as bad weather only the wrong clothes♥

Edit:  Just received these photos of the local train station:

And this is the pub on my road...

Eclectic ramblings

Bunad purse and silver

20th May


Celebration

17th May saw National Constitutional Day in Norway and I was not to be left out, there may not have been a National Holiday here in the UK, but I baked my cake and wore my bunad (national costume).  Outside of Norway the largest parade for 17 May takes place every year in London and despite the fact that I could not attend this year, I streamed live both to the London and Oslo parades.  A girl wants to feel part of the party after all! 



To see more about this day and how to make kransekake pop along to my previous post... here

Traditional Norwegian celebration cake: kransekake

Exams begin with tradition

As with many other households across the UK we are at the beginning of exam fervour.  A tradition has been set up and whoa betide us if we now do not follow it, so in true eclectic home style we had waffles for breakfast as a good luck feast before heading off into the hall in silence, with a see through pencil case, you know what I'm talking about right...

Breakfast waffles

 Sewing for the first time this year

The Great British Sewing Bee began this week and as in previous years I sat glued to the TV, not being a great TV watcher, this is somewhat unusual for me to actually even know when a programme is starting, but I was there in front of the goggle box with a few seconds to spare.  AND it got me to thinking when did I last dust off the old sewing machine and make something?  The following day out it came and from my chaotic craft cupboard, that everything falls out of when you open it because it is crammed full of 'this might come in handy' random stuff, I found very suitable material and a funky chunky red zip.  I had the beginnings of a skirt... 

No pattern, so I had to wing it...

Really happy with the material and red combo

It's so hard to photograph yourself!

I'm not entirely happy with it as the waistband is a little large, so really I need to un pick it and trim it all in but I was running out of time and now I wonder if I will ever get round to it *sigh*

Teaching & Learning

My day job hours are always reduced in mid May every year and this is my frantic time to make, bake, craft, learn and teach.  It began in earnest this year.  Crochet class number 3 began, (actually the first  course of this year)  Still being a tad nervous at teaching crochet I try and dot my 'i's' and cross my 't's' so to speak for days before checking I know exactly what to do and how to go about it.  I think the first class went well, it was on National Day, so the ladies were treated to kransekake, that seemed to wash down well with the refreshments, what to bake for next week?  Any suggestions?  I like to bake something new for each class...

Beginning to set out for the course

And this is week 5 of the Scheepjes CAL, I'm loving it and learning new crochet tit bits all the time.  Ester's videos are totally brilliant, just love it.  To find out more, see this post here

Watching Ester on the video, although with
 the crib sheet and crocheting at the same
time, multi tasking indeed and loving it

 

 

Hard to see in the photograph, but this
week we made seagull prints on the sand!
You have to look very closely...

 

 Nature

What weather!!! you would think we were in April still.  What is right to wear, I seem to get it wrong every day.  I'm either freezing cold or too hot.  Here's what it looks like in my village and garden right now...

Clematis montana in beautiful sunshine. 
Can you spot an animal shape?

Then came the rain.  Leaf of honeysuckle

The wild flowers are literally having a
 field day with the rain and sun

Buttercups in the centre of our village

Such cheery wildflowers

Everyone's wisteria is in full bloom, ours every
 year is behind by a few weeks, odd!

Simply stunning

Sharing with you my five moments from my week and joining in with  Amy

 

♥  Have a glorious week end  ♥

APOLOGIES TO WORDPRESS BLOGGERS
Massive apologies and I have been trying to remember to say this for some weeks, but for some inexplicable reason I cannot leave comments on WordPress.  I write them, click on publish and vamoosh, they disappear, gone into thin air.  I then often try again but to no avail, after now having tried again on two different WordPress blogs I know not what to do to rectify this solution. 
Anyone, can you help?

Celebrations Norwegian style

Traditional celebration cake for Constitutional Day
in Norway today

17 mai ~ 17th May



Hip hip hurrah for i dag er det 17 mai!

Today is Norwegian Constitutional Day, the day Norway became independent and began with their own royal family in 1814.

It's a national holiday and parades through out each town and village across the whole country takes place today.  From early morning brass bands march and celebrational breakfasts are eaten.  Norwegians party all day long with friends and family.

Gathering all the decorations the night before is
somewhat of a late night tradition in our household

  
One of the 'must' have on the food list is the celebration cake known as kransekake, I have written about it several times before but it is so special, I thought you would not mind indulging me again this year.

Kransekake
You will need:
500g almonds with skin on , you can bought ready ground
500g icing sugar
3-4 egg whites
butter for melting
semolina or fine breadcrumbs
icing sugar for decoration

Grind the almonds

Mix with the icing sugar and add egg whites
one at a time, do not make the
dough overly sticky, be careful

It should be a consistency between
crumbly and slightly sticky

Melt butter and brush over rings, add
semolina or breadcrumbs, this helps
 to avoid dough sticking to the rings

Pipe or hand roll (to about a finger width)
mixture to fill the rings

Bake in a preheated oven for 10-12 minutes
at 180 degrees Celsius

Gently remove from rings, this can be quite
precarious and build up into a tower stack

You can either pipe icing sugar on individual rings
before completing the stack or you can drizzle
icing sugar over the tower once formed

Decorating the tower really brings it alive

Decorate with celebratory paraphernalia

I must confess to not creating the perfect kransekake this year, I was too impatient this morning, having meant to make it last night but was not feeling well.  I awoke early this morning to make it.  Taking it out of the oven too early and stacking it before it had cooled properly it began to collapse with the weight of the top rings once I had turned my back on it.  So how to save the day... I simply removed the lower rings, iced them as normal and just laid them around the edge of the now much shorter kransekake.  Do you think anyone will notice?

All ready to party

After having baked the kransekake, I tuned in on live streaming and watched a little of the children's parade in Oslo and saw the royal family waving from their palace balcony, I may not be in Norway but I can still join, the wonders of the internet.

Norwegian royal family watching the parades in Oslo today

Each area of Norway has it's own traditional dress and you can place people by the costume they wear, mine comes from Vest Telemark, where I hail from, I love it and am very proud of it.  It is hand embroidered and was made to measure for me in 1988.  When bought for a young girl it is made with excess material to accommodate the ever changing shape of a woman... (thank goodness)



The hemline of the dress is 3 meters, think of all
that embroidery, it took 6 months to make

 

The accompanying purse which hangs from the hand woven belt
 has the date of make embroidered on it.  Here you also
 see some of the silver jewellery that belongs to such an outfit.

 

 

♥   Gratulerer med dagen til dere alle   ♥