Norwegian Bake Of The Month - Kransekake

Now I'm properly back in the country normal writing can resume! I haven't done a Norwegian Bake Of The Month for a little while so I'm making up for it with a good one - kransekake.

Now for some history (yay..... :D )
Kransekake directly translates as 'wreath cake' and is a traditional Norwegian cake (or Danish - but we'll ignore that for the purpose of this post) and you will always find one at birthdays, Christmases, Easters, confirmations and weddings.  Normally made up of 18 rings of chewy almond cake (some fancy bakeries have bigger ones), they are also normally in a steep cone shape, but if you're really creative you can make a basket and even a horn. Now you do need special tins to bake these in, and from The Caked Crusader's suggestion, you can get them from Lakeland for under £10! It's made up of ground and chopped almonds, icing sugar and egg whites, basically if you don't like marzipan you ain't gonna like this! Simply they are decorated with glace icing and Norwegian flags and sometimes small crackers, for weddings they place a bride and groom on top, streamers and other times they also pin sweets to the sides.

This particular cake was for my brothers second wedding reception (for all those that couldn't make it or travel to Lyme). I hadn't made one myself before so my ever clever viking mum showed me the ropes. We couldn't find a little bride and groom to fit or that looked nice so we found a cute little pair of doves holding wedding rings and also some small wedding crackers along with some white ribbon for the streamer effect. To add some glam we also pinned some wrapped sweets on the sides, easy to pick off for a sugar rush!

Warning, you do really need two days to make this cake for the best results!

Ingredients
Dough
500g of almonds (250g of which is ground)
500g of icing sugar
4 egg-whites

Icing
1 egg-white
3 decilitres of icing sugar (300ml)

Method

1. Skinning the almonds: Add the non-ground almonds to a pot of boiling water.  Turn off the heat and leave them for 2-3 minutes.  Pour the almonds into a strainer and rinse them under cold water.  Take a fistful of the almonds at a time and rub them in a towel to make the skin loose.  Pop the almonds out of their skin and leave to dry for a few hours or over night.

2. Making the dough: Grind the skinned and unskinned almonds in an almond grinder or food processor (why not just by all ground? You want some almond skin in there).  Add the icing sugar and mix.  Add egg-whites until the mixture becomes stretchy and firm.  Cover the bowl with plastic and put in the fridge for a couple of hours, preferably overnight as it makes them more elastic.

 

3. Baking the cake: Grease kransekake moulds and sprinkle with semolina or fine bread crumbs, we didn't have either of these so used icing sugar, works fine. Heat oven to 200C/180fan (390F).  Take a lump of dough at a time and roll into finger thick lengths that fit the moulds and join by squishing them together. Cook the rings in the centre of the oven for about 10mins or until golden.  Cool them before putting them in an air-tight box.  Leave the box in the freezer for at least 24 hours.  This will make the kransekake nice and chewy.

4. Constructing the cake: Defrost the rings for 30mins minimum.  Make icing by beating one egg white with 3dl of icing sugar.  Fill the icing in an icing-bag.  Assemble the cake from biggest ring to smallest using the icing as glue by zig-zagging the icing across the rings.

5. Decorate with tinsel, flags, party poppers, sparklers and wrapped lollies.

6. Eat!

Nom!

Recipe adapted from My Little Norway




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Norwegian Bløtkake

This weekend is my mum's birthday. We're going away to Barry Island for the weekend as we're literally obsessed with Gavin and Stacey so do expect a lot of touristy and shameless photos next week!

Anyway, for work she always makes this traditional Norwegian cream cake 'bløtkake' which basically translates as 'moist cake' and is made up of fatless sponge, fruit, jam, juice (from tinned fruit), cream and marzipan. I know, I hear you screaming now, marzipan is almost its own food group in Norway. They love it, you get marzipan shaped pigs at Christmas and chocolate covered sticks of it at Easter...and, well, all year round really they just love the stuff. I, to be honest have never been that keen but apparently it works really well with this cake as it really lifts it, and it's rolled super thin - not like how we roll fondant here.

It's a layered cake starting with the juice soaked sponge, jam, cream, fruit/nuts and some add custard too. You will find these cakes in every shop, at every birthday...and to be honest anywhere they serve food! My nan could eat this all day long so we always bring her some from her favourite bakery when visiting.

I hadn't made one before myself so I thought I would get in on the action, and it would make a great post for AlphaBakes with marzipan being a perfect choice for the letter M! I know a lot of people are using marzipan but I can promise that no one will have entered one of these bad boys.

This is baking challenge made by The More than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes. This month Caroline Makes is hosting the challenge and I can't wait to submit this family recipe!

Unfortunately I won't get a slice of this magnificent beast as I don't think it will survive long at my mum's work...but it looks glorious so I'm happy!

And as ALWAYS, there are a lot of pictures so be patient...it's an obsession.

Ingredients:

26 cm diameter tin

6 eggs

150 g sugar

180 g flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tin canned fruit (we used pineapple)

1/2 jam (any, we used strawberry)

700ml double cream

1 bag chopped waltnuts 

1 punnet of strawberries (or any other fruit you may like)

1 block of marzipan

Method:
Beat eggs and sugar into submission until thick, light and fluffy.

Measure out flour and and baking powder.

Then fold gently into the egg mixture with a spatula.

Grease a baking tin and sprinkle with flour, I would recommend lining the bottom as well.

Pour into cake batter and place on the middle shelf in the oven. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN.

Bake in preheated oven 170C/150C fan

Cooking time is about 40 minutes but we did about 45 - 50.  

The cake is cooked when it is no longer 'singing', I have only just become aware of this term...

 

When the cake is cool cut it into three layers. We wanted this cake to be huge so we made an extra cake for thicker layers (because we're greedy).  Whip the cream into stiff peaks.

Moisten each layer by sprinkling spoons of juice, then spread over the jam in a thin layer. Whack a good layer of cream on and spread right to the edge.

 Now you can add some fruit or nuts or both. We chose sliced strawberries and chopped walnuts. Repeat another layer, you can alternate what fillings you put in each layer.

Add the top layer of sponge and add another layer or jam and cream. For the marzipan to stick to the sides you'll need to dirty ice the cake with - wait for it more cream! Nom nom.

This is where you can get more creative with making patterns with sliced fruit, some prefer to add sweets to the top or some even cover the whole cake in marzipan which does look really nice.

But as we're not a marzipan eating nation here we thought cream would be better :D We filled the top with more sliced strawberries and crushed walnuts and finished the whole thing off with some piped cream in true Norwegian style.

It's now sitting safely in the fridge until tomorrow...must not eat mum's cake.....must not eat it.....

Nom!

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Halvorsens Conditori, Oslo - The Best Place In Oslo

It's been a busy week with coming to Norway, Christmas, visiting my nan everyday. But one morning when we weren't able to go visiting we thought we'd go to our favourite place while we had the time.

Halvorsens Conditori, it's my nan's and mum's tradition that I was let in on a couple of years ago, a sandwich will easily set you back £9.00 but they are worth it, and everything does actually cost more here so when you live here it isn't so horrific. They also have the best coffee in town so my mum was happy.

While coffee doesn't interest me at all, you all know cake does! It's standard to have a sandwich, a pot of coffee and a slice of amazing cake. It all costs what you would spend on a regular dinner out, not exactly a Boot's meal deal, but as we only get to do it once or twice a year it's so justifiable.

The cake choice is pretty big, Norwegians love their slices of cake and I have to say for me they are the best in the world, nothing has beaten it yet. The place itself is gorgeous. Huge windows, chandeliers the lot it really does feel special.

I also love that you can buy larger cakes their for most occasions. You get your standard Blødtkake (below, the ones on top shelf) which is basically a national cake. But not for me as it's covered in marzipan which they are crazy for here but I hate it, so while I wouldn't buy a slice if there's some at a party I'll happily just peel that layer off and eat the three/four layers of cake and cream.

You could also buy Kransekaker which is an almond cake made up of rings they famously have on their national day and at any celebration. At this time of year they're usually decorated in mini Norwegian flags and small crackers.

I love the cakes at the top, the dress cakes. Although instead of using Barbie doll tops like most these are made like Victorian ladies, I actually love them I wish I had a reason to need to buy one! They're so pretty I must have looked like a crazy lady taking pictures constantly.

As we were leaving I noticed the window display which puts any gingerbread house I have ever made to shame and makes me want to camp out there until they teach me their ways. One day, I WILL make something like this!

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