Note: This is the first in a series of reader recipes I’ll be sharing in the weeks and months to come. Thanks to Lauren Carlson of Scandilø Baked Goods for sharing the following guest post! Do YOU have a beloved family recipe that connects you to your heritage or brings you back to sweet memories from your past? Click here to share YOUR family recipe–you might just see it featured on Outside Oslo!
By Lauren Carlson
Geneva, NY
Growing up in North Dakota, I was surrounded by a lot of Norwegian and Norwegian-Americans. With that comes a lot of tempting Nordic goodies. There are a lot of talented bakers in my family, starting with my 107-year-old-Great Grandma Verna who worked as a baker and farm wife, my grandma Jo, my aunts, and of course, my mom.
As a young girl, I remember my mom often making kringle. She made it in the early morning to bring to her exercise class. When she came home, all that was left were buttery crumbs and globs of almond icing. I wasn’t too sad; I happily shmeared the icing and remaining kringle bits into a perfect crunchy, sweet bite.
One summer afternoon she pulled me aside and taught me how to make kringle. Over the years, I learned the traditional bakes like berlinerkranser, fattigman, skoleboller, and flettekrans. This was the catalyst for my love of baking and the inspiration for my small baking business, Scandilø, out of Geneva, NY. But kringle will always be my favorite.
It is easy to make (only 4 ingredients!), impressive to look at, and easy to eat! Buttery crunch, puffy, silky, eggy center, draped in almond icing. It’s all you need with a stiff cup of coffee.
Kringle is something that makes a regular appearance in my kitchen (and freezer, as it freezes beautifully). If you are looking to impress or simply to indulge, give kringle a try.
Lauren’s Family Kringle — Swedish Kringle (or Danish or Norwegian depending on the baker)!
Ingredients
Pastry:
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tablespoons water cold!
The puff, or pate choux:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup flour
- 3 eggs
Glaze:
- Confectioners' sugar glaze (See notes)
- Sliced almonds
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut 1/2 cup butter into 1 cup flour. Add 2 tablespoons of ice water over mixture; mix with fork or pastry cutter, even your hands. Round into ball; divide in half (if you want to or just shape to fit a 9 x 13” pan). On a lined or ungreased baking sheet, shape each half into a strip, about 12 x 3 inches.
- In a saucepan, heat 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup of water to rolling boil. I like to cut the butter up in pieces to help the butter and water come to a boil evenly. Remove from heat and add almond extract. Add 1 cup flour all at once. Stir (with fervor!) until a ball form. Beat in eggs one at a time, until smooth. Don’t worry if the batter looks slimey. It will eventually all combine beautifully. Do know it is a very thick, gluey texture. Divide in half if you made 2 strips; spread each half evenly over strips leaving no border or edge. If you made just one large kringle do the same by spreading evenly over entire kringle.
- Bake about 60 minutes or until light brown. Cool and frost.
Notes
Photos in today’s post courtesy of Lauren
5 thoughts on “Lauren’s Family Kringle (guest post)”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I’m in North Dakota and this is my favorite Christmas recipe! I’ve made it for decades and can’t recall where I first got the recipe. It was not a family one for me and I’ve not seen it published before. Thanks for sharing!
I was making my Christmas baking list this morning and received your email. Great timing. Every year I make almost the same things, krumkaka, sandbakkles, rosettes, Broomstick cookies, Coconut Kisses, and butter cookies. My dad’s family is from Norway and these are all made from our family recipes which I am passing on to my Daughter and Granddaughter.
We make up plates of cookies and give them to friends who seem to look forward to them every year. Its fun to hear that other Norweigians do the same thing! We also love kringles and are fortunate to know that a bakery in Racine Wis. makes wonderful ones which we always order and share. Actually they now supply a small store here so we can get them off and on dSueuring the winter. Happy Christmas Baking!!!!!!
This is very interesting. My great-grandparents came to Northern Illinois from Rogaland. They always had kringles in a bowl on the table at all times. We grew up making them at least every Christmas. They didn’t look anything like this recipe. Our kringles were a soft sour cream sweet bread that is rolled and shaped similar to a pretzel. They were the size of a small dinner roll. Do you think this is regional? Your recipe looks delicious. I may try it.
Robin, what you describe is how my family from Hardanger makes kringle.
We use anise seeds and extract flavoring instead of almond. Instead of sour cream, my mom added lemon juice to milk to make sour milk/cream.
I learned this recipe (from a bake sale we had in high school for our French Class) as a French Pastry. Of course, I grew up in Minnesota in the 1970’s, so I am not surprised to find out this EXACT recipe is Scandic in its’ provenance (to use a French word!). The utterly sinful taste of almond flavoring with this éclair like middle is to die for. And the smell? I can smell it now, and my mouth is watering. Merci- errr, Mange Takk!