Kransakaka

Wreath cake

Such a "wreath cake" is a special specialty for festive occasions in many parts of Scandinavia and here in Iceland you can often find it on the cake buffet, especially at baptisms and confirmations. A cake like this actually consists of 15 to 18 stacked cake rings.

The cake consists of a lot of marzipan and sugar and is very tasty, but at least I can't eat a lot of it in one go!

I have now only made 1/3 of the recipe and baked a small wreath cake with only 6 rings as a dessert for our Easter meal. Sort of like an “Easter edition” with a small Easter egg on the cake for decoration.

However, the Easter eggs came from Germany - here in Iceland we don't know boiled colored chicken eggs or small chocolate Easter eggs. There are really large chocolate eggs (páskaegg) filled with chocolate and other sweets, and the smallest filled egg weighs at least 120 g, the "giant eggs" can weigh 1 kilo or more.

Ingredients for a cake with 15 - 18 wreaths

1.5 kg raw marzipan

750 g white sugar

3 egg whites

various chocolate to decorate

Preparation

Cut the marzipan into small pieces and mix with the sugar in a large mixing bowl using a mixer.

Beat the egg white until stiff...

...and fold it into the marzipan-sugar mixture in portions.

Knead the dough thoroughly and then cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least four hours (preferably overnight).

Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C) upper/lower heat.

Roll out the dough to about 1.5 cm thick.

Cut the dough into strips approx. 2 cm wide. The shortest strip should be about 10 cm long, the other strips should each be 3 cm longer.

Then shape the strips into circles and use your hands to shape them into as even a shape as possible.

Then place the wreaths of different sizes on baking paper and bake in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 10 to 15 minutes - always keep an eye on the wreaths so that they don't get too dark.

Take the tray out of the oven and let it cool thoroughly.

Then decorate the cold wreaths with melted chocolate or something similar as desired; you can also have fun with the decoration to your heart's content.

Melt the chocolate in a water bath.

Place the largest ring on a cake plate or other suitable surface, decorate with the melted chocolate and place the next ring on top and carefully press it a little onto the chocolate. Continue like this until the whole cake is finished.

This was our "Easter edition" before cutting - we then removed the wreaths one by one and are now eating our way through from top to bottom. There are two rings left in the fridge, I think...

Sometimes it's just fun to enjoy the good of both worlds - i.e. a small Icelandic wreath cake with German chocolate Easter eggs.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]