Friday, December 22, 2006

I promise this is very likely a one-time thing

I can assure you most whole-heartedly that this will never be a recipe blog. Plenty of people already have that whole "food blog" thing covered, and it should be obvious by now that the culinary arts are not my area of expertise. I cook a proper meal about as often as I change my furnace filter (that's about four times a year, for you non-homeowners out there), so I'm really not in any position to come here raving about some new recipe you must try. Pomegranate martinis? That I have covered. Canapes* and antipasto? Not so much.

In any case, I am compelled to share a recipe today, only because I just received it via e-mail from my lovely friend Simone as a follow-up to the party- and Norwegian-snack-related comments on two recent posts from the past week. I won't pretend the whole lot of you are dying to make a batch of Kringler (which is, apparently, the proper spelling for this mystery pastry known as "Kringla") on your own, but I thought at least one or two of you might be curious enough to try. (If you do, let me know how it goes, as I doubt I'll be testing this recipe myself any time in the terribly near future.)

So here you are. Norwegian Kringler. Just like Simone's aunt (and, presumably, -R-'s Iowan grandma) used to make...



BASE:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1-2 tbsp. water

TOPPING:
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
1 tsp. almond extract
3 eggs

GLAZE:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. half and half or cream
1 tbsp. butter
1-2 tsp. almond extract

Heat oven to 375 degrees. In medium bowl, combine 1 cup flour. Using pastry blender or fork, cut in 1/2 cup butter until particles are the size of small peas. Sprinkle flour mixture with 1 tablespoon water while tossing and mixing lightly with fork.

Form dough into ball; divide in half. On ungreased cookie sheet, form dough into 2 (14 x 3-inch) rectangles.

In medium saucepan, heat 1 cup water and 1/2 cup butter to boiling; remove from heat. Add 1 cup flour; stir until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in 1 teaspoon almond extract.

Spread topping mixture over base. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until lightly browned.

In small bowl, combine glaze ingredients. Drizzle glaze over cooled Kringler.


I would like to note that I cook and bake so seldomly and, consequently, have such a poorly stocked kitchen that my first thought upon scanning the ingredients was, "Wow. I could actually almost make this if I wanted to. All I'd need is some almond extract. I already have everything else!" And then I realized, "Wait. I don't have eggs." And then, "Or powdered sugar." And I have Half & Half only because I bought it to make White Russians at my party last weekend and then forgot and neglected to make them anyway. So basically I was excited and proud of myself because I had butter, flour, and water on hand. Yep. I'm a regular Martha Stewart. Don't even try telling me otherwise.


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* I love that this is not in Blogger's spell check dictionary, but Cannabis (its suggested replacement) is.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too bad its just a one-time thing - I could really use a good lutefisk recipe.

Stefanie said...

OK, Digital Janitor, I am here for you.

1. Get some fish.

2. Soak it in lye for a while. I don't really know how long... maybe 24 hours or so? Also, do you need to do anything to make lye a liquid rather than a solid? I'm not sure. This may require some research on your part, which, frankly, means this really isn't a very good recipe, I suppose.

3. Order yourself a pizza, because Lutefisk is just not good.

How's that? Does that pretty much cover what you needed? I hope so. :-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks Stef, and thanks Simone, I'm gonna try this :)

ePixie29 said...

I love Kringler! I'm soooo happy you decided to post this recipe. Now I can make it instead of having to have it shipped from Minnesota or Wisconsin.

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what my grandma's recipe was, but that looks way better. My grandma was just about the worst cook ever. And yet I still have fond memories of the Kringler. (Really? It ends in -er? That is so weird.) I am going to try to make this version. Like you, I will have to go purchase just about each of those ingredients. I don't think I even have any flour!

Stefanie said...

R--No way! You have (or had) a bad-cook grandma, too? No one believes me that the things my grandma makes are not delicious. It's like they think being of that generation automatically makes you a fabulous cook.

As for the name, Wikipedia says the "er" is part of the plural form. They also list a few other spellings as well, and they told me that a city only about an hour from my parents' house is apparently the Kringle capital of the world (or at least the country). Who knew? (I didn't, obviously.)



Also, you're welcome, Anniina. Glad to be of service. And hi, epixie29! Haven't seen you around here in a while. Thanks for stopping in. :-)

Anonymous said...

Um, I think Kringler is one of those things like Cheese Kurds, that I never heard of until I moved to Minnesota. In Ohio, we do have Buckeyes (the chocolate kind with peanut butter in the middle; I can send a recipe if you'd like), but what I really want is for Stef to post her recipe for "White Trash"!

Stefanie said...

Ah, Jamie, you missed that at my party last week! It didn't seem to be that big a hit this year, so I would have sent you home with a big bag of it!

Anyway, I originally got that recipe from LJC, who got it from Alton Brown's blog. I can't find it on his site anymore, but here's another blog that published the same recipe: Enjoy

Anonymous said...

YUM.

Thanks, Stef!