Kransekager
-or-
Danish Wedding Cakes

 

To Begin:
Pre-heat to 300 degrees

Preparation:
Grease baking sheet with butter and dust with finely ground bread crumbs.
Mix almond pase and powdered sugar.
(almond paste can be hard, so add the past a bit at a time, thouroughly mix in each bit in before adding more)
Add egg whites and mix well.
Place bowl in hot water and knead dough until it is luke warm.
Turn out on board sprinkled with 1/4 cup powdered sugar.
Let rest 10 minutes

Knead 2-3 minutes, dusting hands and counter with sugar instead of flour.
Divide the dough into 18 pieces.
If you are lucky enough to have the metal rings, place each piece into ring.
Otherrwse do the following.
Hand roll each into a ball, slanting the palm of your hand douwnwards towards the edge so thet it peaks up in the center, kind of like a smal hat.
Then turning the ends toward eah other to form a ring.
(kind of like a totelinni)

Bake:
Bake the rings for 20 minutes.
Then cool on a tray
Do not remove the rings from trays until cool.

Make Frosting:

Mix the frosting ingredients and drizzle on top of each ring.
As you do so, place each smaller ring on top of next larger ring.

Traditionally served :

At Danish weddings

Kristine Nielsen:

Kristine Nielsen, for years, made and sold Kransekager, Danish Wedding Cake, at the Scandinavian Festival. She was locally famous for Danish cuisine.
She taught Danish cooking as an LCC extension course and in 1974 was a member of a special delegation
who demonstrated Danish cooking at the World Expo in Spokane, Washington.
Kristine was the Festivals first supervisor of food booths, sang in the Community Chorus, and acheved the Gale Fletchall Life Time achievement award in 1993.
She was born in Hurup thy, Denmark in 1905 and immigrated to the US in 1928 at the age of 22.

Source: Scandinavian Festival Association Newsletter, and Kristine Nielsen.