Baking Buys

Recently most of my money has been going on sorting my room out, it really needs redecorating and this bank holiday weekend I eneded up at IKEA, one of my favourite shops...probably most people's favourite shop?

Most of the stuff I got was for my room and around the house, but I did manage to pick up a few bits for my ever growing baking collection. Which actually I shouldn't even be adding to as it's bursting at the seams!

 

 

Anyway onto the goods, my first find was a flour sifter. Time for a confession, I rarely sift flour....I know, I know!! So I thought if I got a nice sifter I'd probably do it more often, good thinking...maybe? Anyway it only cost £2.50 which was a total bargain in my opinion...I only have to figure out how to fix the spring into the handle as they come in two parts (might actually have to youtube it).

Next I found something I'd been looking for for quite a while, a cake stand and dome. I've seen a few but as soon as I saw it I grabbed it like a mad woman and chucked it in the trolley and ran away (actually it wasn't as dramatic as that, but you get my drift). I love the pattern on the stand, my only wish was that maybe the dome was higher but to be honest when I come to put the lid down, hopefully there's only a bit of cake left so it should fit in no problem - and at £15 it would have been crazy to put it back.

The next item might not seem to interesting, it's a baking sheet. BUT, it's a really big one! I first saw these on the Great British Bake Off last year and immediately bought one but now know that one is just not enough. I'm tired of having to struggle with only one and then fitting biscuits on small baking trays, boring I know! So when I saw this one I thought it would be a good investment for Christmas when I come to do my seven kinds. This cost £5.25 which I though was brilliant. 

And finally onto something more fun, stencils! I really love stencil and have a few now and couldn't resist picking these up for £2.25 for the pack of 5. I think I'm most excited about the polkadot stencil, this would work really well on a buttercream cake with icing sugar - keep posted for me trialing it out!

I'm sure I'll be going to IKEA again soon, I really need some new bedroom furniture to go with all the other things I've bought, and I could spend hours in their kitchen section, there's so much I think you see different things each time you go. I'm sure I'll be back with more baking buys soon!

Nom!

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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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