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I host a festive Christmas bash every year. I buy the biggest tree possible, bake cookies for days, and hang enough string lights to shake the power grid. And while I always make some savory cheese boards and Thai food, there’s only one thing my friends ask about in the weeks leading up to it. “Are you making the giant almond cookie cake?” It’s called a kransekake, and this tree-shaped Scandinavian cookie cake has become the mascot of my party. There are a million reasons why, but here are three: It’s show-stopping in stature, truly scrumptious, and the dough requires only four ingredients.
The kransekake is a Norwegian wedding cake, but it fits right at home on the dessert table of any celebration. It’s essentially a cookie stack made of about 18 concentric cookie rings that subtly decrease in size. Sometimes I'll even make extra rings for a taller cake.
The almond cookie dough is rather like edible amaretti Play-Doh. It’s thick and pliable so you can easily roll out a clump into a long pencil-thin snake. The almond rope fits into a kransekake mold and gets baked right in there to hold the shape. While you could free-hand it like they did in the Great British Bake-Off, I wouldn’t recommend it. Paul Hollywood isn’t in your house anyway, so just get the molds. They’re non-stick, heavy duty, and last for years.
I’ve been making this kransekake recipe for my Christmas parties for the past five years (this is year six), and every time, no matter that everyone has seen it before, this cookie cake gets showered with compliments, “oohed” and “ahhed,” and at least five boomerang videos of it will spring up on social. I do put it on a cake turntable and decorate it with edible glitter, so perhaps I feed into the attention a tiny bit.
The part that everyone seems to love most is pulling off their own cookie ring (each one is "glued" to the next with sweet and crunchy royal icing). The practice of dismantling and consuming this cake slowly throughout the evening brings out that special twisted joy of devouring something beautiful. When only the larger rings remain, it’s common for people to start breaking off a small segment as they walk by. I like to dip them into a hot cup of this glögg recipe.
The cookie dough itself is shockingly simple to make.
Dump equal parts store-bought blanched almond flour and confectioner’s sugar into a big bowl, add two egg whites and a few drops of almond extract. You can let a stand mixer with a paddle attachment knead the dough together, but I prefer to don a couple food-safe vinyl gloves and smash the dough together with my hands. It only takes a minute to get the dough thoroughly mixed.
Keeping the bulk of the dough covered with a piece of plastic so it doesn’t dry out, pull off a chunk of the dough. Use both palms and a clean countertop (no flour for this recipe) to roll it out into a thin rope. Carefully lift the rope into one of the troughs in the kransekake mold. Just pick the closest fit, the dough is a very forgiving putty at this point.
If the rope is too long, tear a bit off the end and smoosh the meeting ends together to complete the circle. If the rope is just too short, you can roll a tiny bit of dough to bridge the gap. Make sure to thoroughly press the seams so you don’t have a weak spot there after baking. If your rope gets messed up or breaks, just smash it back into a ball and re-roll it. This dough doesn’t have wheat flour in it, so you don’t have to worry about gluten development or tough cookies.
Once I’ve filled two of the mold pans, I place them on a sheet pan and pop them in the oven to bake while I roll and fill the next two. When the baked cookies come out, let them cool completely. They’re very light and rather delicate when they’re still hot, so give them about 10 minutes to cool before you pop them out. I use a fork to release one side of the cookie ring and then the whole thing usually jumps right out. If they’re sticking a lot, return the pan to the oven for another five minutes.
Once I’ve baked and cooled all the cookies, I usually store them in the freezer until the big day. Then I return the cookies to room temperature and drizzle them with royal icing (powdered sugar with some egg white) and stack them up into a proud almond-flavored tree. You can press sprinkles into the icing, edible glitter, or small candies if you’d like. The cookie itself will be crisp and chewy, showcasing its light, sweet almond flavor. Enjoy the leftovers for about three days if well covered.
Ingredients:
10.5 ounces almond flour
10.5 ounces powdered sugar
2 fresh egg whites
½ teaspoon almond extract
1. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Place the kransekake molds onto a sheet pan.
2. Mix all of the ingredients together thoroughly with your hands (gloved hands are best) in a large mixing bowl, or in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. The dough should be soft but not sticky. If it is, add a spoonful or two of almond flour and mix it again.
3. Keep the dough covered with a small piece of plastic wrap. Tear off golf ball-ish sized pieces and roll them into long ropes, the thickness of a pencil. You’ll need smaller ropes for the smaller circles and larger ones as you go on. Carefully lay the dough ropes into the mold rings, connecting the ends together by squeezing them and reshaping for an endless circle. Repeat with the rest of the rings.
4. Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they’re puffed and a blush of browning occurs over the tops. Don’t overbake them or they’ll be too crunchy later.
This dough is enough to make all 18 rings. Use any extra dough to fix any mess ups, or roll it into balls and bake them for chewy amaretti cookies.
