For Irina’s going away cake, I wanted to do something that would honor her moving to ITU Copenhagen. So, I googled for anything cake related and Danish… I stumbled on to the Kransekake, which I must say is gorgeous, but looked a bit intimidating.
Then, I discovered that you can buy these special pans for making it.
So, that seemed easy enough 🙂 The trick of course, is that the recipe calls for an absurd amount of Marzipan, which is quite expensive. Thinking I would be very thrifty, I bought a giant bag of almonds at Costco, and proceeded to blanch them and make my own marzipan. YUMMY! Time consuming, but YUMMY and much less expensive than store bought. I made an absolute ton, so I could make some practice cakes before the big day (which I really really needed). I wound up with leftovers, which made lovely rocks in the soil of Mars.
Once the rings are baked, you just stack them up bit by bit with icing in between. I was smart enough to bring the pans unassembled to Paul’s house (the going away party being at Irina’s down the street).
Of course, one of the big things you are meant to do with a Danish wedding cake is to have flags that represent the happy couple. Irina is already married, and this wasn’t her wedding cake anyway. So, I settled on Danish and Kazhakstani flags to represent her future and her heritage.
All this worked brilliantly, and we even made it all the way to Irina’s house duckwalking the giant pan with the giant cake down the streets of Long Beach.