Winter & Christmas

Kransekage

Kransekage is a tower of rings made from tender almond dough – slightly crisp outside, soft and moist inside. In Denmark it belongs to New Year and big celebrations, but baked as small bars it is also lovely with coffee at Christmas.

A tall kransekage tower of stacked rings with white icing
Photo: Lorie Shaull / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Preparation
1 h
Cooking/baking time
15 min
Servings
approx. 20 people
Difficulty
Challenging

Ingredients

Dough

Icing

You will also need

Method

  1. Coarsely grate the marzipan and knead it with the icing sugar and egg white into a firm, smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 1 hour, ideally overnight.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200 °C (conventional). Grease the ring tins and dust them with flour or semolina.
  3. Roll the dough into finger-thick ropes long enough to fill each tin and lay them in the tins. Press the ends firmly together.
  4. Bake the rings for 10–12 minutes until lightly golden, leave them to cool in the tins and then carefully remove them.
  5. Mix the icing sugar with the egg white and lemon juice to a thick icing and fill a small piping bag.
  6. Stack the rings from largest to smallest, gluing each one in place with zigzag lines of icing. Decorate the tower as you like and let it dry for a few hours before cutting.
  7. Without ring tins, shape the dough into bars about 2 cm thick, flatten slightly, bake for 10–12 minutes and decorate with icing once cool.

The story behind the dish

A kransekage is made from almonds, sugar and egg white, often also from marzipan. The sticky dough is rolled into finger-thick ropes, baked as rings and stacked into a cone-shaped tower.

It is held together and decorated with icing, often with small Danish flags as well. It is above all a Scandinavian tradition and is served at occasions such as New Year’s Eve, weddings and confirmations.

Enjoy it at Dansk Cottage

Between Christmas and New Year Ærø is quiet – the best time to build a kransekage tower together and cut it at midnight.

The cottage kitchen · Discover Søby · Experience Ærø

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In the mood for Denmark?

Dansk Cottage near Søby can be booked from 1 May 2027 – with a spacious kitchen for exactly this kind of dish.

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