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A CROWNING EVENT AT INGEBRETSEN’S
by Mark Ambroe
Most people in Powderhorn know about and hopefully have even visited Ingebretsen’s Scandinavian Foods and Gifts at 1601 East Lake Street, after all it has been a neighborhood mainstay since 1921. What you maybe didn’t know is that they also teach several kinds of cooking, craft, and culture classes there. I took one such class recently and learned how to make one of my lifelong favorite desserts: kransekake. It is essentially a sweet, chewy almond-based cookie, traditionally presented as a pyramid-like “crown cake” resembling thin donuts stacked up on top of one another, glued together with hardened white icing. Ingebretsen’s sells the smaller cookie versions of kransekake in their freezer section.
Our 2-hour class on Saturday morning was taught by Lorraine Jasinski, who has 20 years of kransekake experience. We started by making the white icing and then constructing a complete crown cake from pre-baked rings which Lorraine had brought in. At first, this seemed a little backwards to me, but it quickly became clear that assembling the cake is an essential and non-trivial part of the process, and after we built our cake, this approach also conveniently created a natural opportunity for a snack breakJ. At this point, I learned another very interesting kransekake fact: the crown cakes are actually served from the BOTTOM up (take the class to find out how this trick is performed!)
After the break, we got back to work and ground up some almonds using a small hand operated cylindrical grater. Lorraine taught us a traditional recipe using ground almonds, but a common variation uses almond paste instead (also available at Ingebretsen’s), producing a smoother texture and a more uniform white color. Next, we added some powdered sugar, wheat flour, and egg whites and kneaded it all into a heavy, sticky dough ball. Then, we rolled the dough into long thin ropes which we then carefully placed into 6 ring-shaped pans. Since we didn’t have use of an oven, this essentially completed the class, and we removed the dough rings and divided them up amongst ourselves to take home and bake into cookies. Since the class included a 10% off coupon, I actually bought a set of the 6 special pans and an almond grinder, and I’m really looking forward to celebrating this holiday season with a homemade kransekake crown cake.
