My first Kransekake

What you might ask is a Kransekake? Well, it is a special Norwegian cake used for special ocassions. I decided to try it for Christmas Eve this year since my aunt Berit gave me the forms. I want to incorporate some Norway traditions into our celebrations since I grew up with fond memories at my Grandmothers home eating goodies from Norway. I loved her accent and her cooking! So for this year I am having Gjetost cheese (goat cheese-the caramel colored one), Open faced sandwiches-a regular in Norway, Salmon and Krumkaker (little cornet shaped cookies) I spent a Saturday morning with my aunt and she taught me how to make these. They are served with fresh whipped cream mixed with cloudberry jam (cloudberries are a golden berry from northern Sweden). These were my favorite as a child!! Here's a picture of them:

Now for the Kransekake. It was fun to make, and I wanted to share the process with you before I show you the final cake. The dough consists of 1 pound butter, 1 cup almond paste, 2 cups powdered sugar, 1tsp almond extract, 4 egg yolks and 5 cups flour.

After creaming them I discovered the dough very cookie like, not cake like-even though it is called a cake. Here are the forms, there are 6 of them with room for three rings each.

I used my cookie press to pipe dough into each ring-this was the most time consuming part.

After they baked, I set them outside to "quickly cool" as one recipe said.

Here are all the rings removed from the pans, and luckily I only broke one!!!

Next I stack each ring with a little piped frosting between each one to hold it together, and decorate it with flags, candy or whatever! I think it turned out very cool, and the cookies taste very good. Here's to new traditions and wonderful juleminner! (Christmas memories) Beth