Scandinavia's almond ring tower: concentric rings of almond paste stacked into a crown, iced in fine white loops
Origin: Norway and Denmark
From the journey of Almond.
The kransekake, the 'wreath cake', is the grandest celebration cake of Scandinavia, a tower built of many concentric rings of almond paste, stacked from a broad base to a slender crown and decorated with fine white loops of royal icing. It is the cake of weddings, of christenings, of seventeenth-of-May Norwegian national day, and above all of New Year's Eve, when the tower is broken apart and shared, each ring snapped into chewy, marzipan-like pieces. Often the rings are stacked around a bottle of wine or aquavit, and tiny paper flags or crackers crown the summit. The almond could never grow in the cold Nordic climate, and that is precisely what made it precious: imported at expense on the German and Baltic trade, it became the luxury at the heart of the festive table. The kransekake is the Scandinavian flowering of the German and medieval marzipan tradition, but it is wholly its own thing, made of almost nothing but ground almond, icing sugar, and egg white, baked just until the rings are set and golden outside yet stay soft and chewy within. Specially graduated ring tins make the neat tower possible, though the rings can be shaped by hand. Rich, chewy, and intensely almond, standing tall and white on the table, the kransekake turns the dark midwinter feast into an occasion, the almond of the warm south raised into a monument of the cold north.
Kransekake keeps for a week or more in an airtight tin, staying soft and chewy. It can be made as a free-standing tower, stacked around a bottle, or baked in a single large ring. Decorate the summit with small flags, crackers, or a sugar figure to suit the occasion; for New Year, fireworks and flags are traditional.
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