KRINGLA, OR: NOT REALLY KRINGLA BUT THAT'S WHAT WE CALL IT

 Easy Choux Pastry Brunch Recipe- crisp, chocolate-y, egg goodness!
Kringla usually means a pretzel-shaped soft cookie usually reserved for Christmas time, but growing up in my family it meant something much different.  Well, we still had Kringla at Christmas, but on regular Saturdays or Sunday mornings, we had the other "Kringla".  It's an amazing hybrid of choux pastry puffs, french crullers, and something else I'm not sure of.  Crisp brown peaks of choux pastry give way to valleys flowing with little rivers of chocolate or vanilla glaze with an airy, eggy base to hold it all up.  This is the breakfast of champions.  And people who don't have a lot of time but want to make something impressive.  You can make all sorts of twists and variations of this, too.  Make it savory if you want- that's something I've never tried.  Hmm, maybe another post on that experiment will be coming soon.

In the meantime, give this recipe a try.  It's also a good place to start if you're intimidated by choux pastry and it's airy puffs- this one is foolproof.

Breakfast, brunch, brinner, or dessert- it's easy, fast, and flexible.

  Easy Choux Pastry Brunch Recipe- crisp, chocolate-y, egg goodness!


YOU WILL NEED:
Choux Pastry Dough:
1 cup water
1 cup flour
1 stick butter (I prefer unsalted here)
4 eggs

For the Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350'.  In a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, melt the butter in the water.  It doesn't need to boil, but if it does, that's okay.  Once the butter is melted, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour.  Once the flour is mixed in well, as the eggs, one at a time.

Spread the mixture onto a greased baking sheet- it should make two long rectangles.  Spread it about 1/2-1 inch thick.  It doesn't have to be perfect or even by any means.

Bake until lightly golden brown.  The easiest way to tell if it is done is this: when the little moisture beads evaporate completely from the tops of the pastry, it's done.  Don't open the oven door to check on them, though- use the oven light.  The steam that builds in the oven helps them to cook properly and opening the door will mess with that.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.  This is so that when you drizzle them with glaze, it stays on top of the kringla instead of soaking into it.  While they are cooling, make your glaze.

Mix the powdered sugar and milk together to form the glaze.  You can be pretty free with this, adding more milk or more sugar to get your ideal "drizzling" consistency.  You won't mess anything up by experimenting- have fun!

Here are some flavor variations that you can try:

Vanilla:
add 1/2 tsp. vanilla or 1/2 vanilla bean

Chocolate:
add 1/4 cup melted chocolate

Orange:
add 1/2 tsp. vanilla and 1 tsp. orange zest

Almond:
add 1/2 tsp. almond flavoring

Cinnamon Spice:
add 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Hot Night in Mumbai:
melt 1 T. butter with 2-3 saffron stamens and add, add 1/8 tsp cracked black pepper and 1/2 tsp. orange zest

Pretty Pink:
add 1/4 tsp. hibiscus powder

Matcha:
add 1/2 tsp. matcha green tea powder

Frenchie:
Instead of the powdered sugar glaze, melt 3 T. apricot jam in the microwave and drizzle over kringla

2 comments:

  1. My mom called it Swedish pastry and mixed almond flavoring in the glaze, topping it with sliced almonds. Delicious. Love your variations in the glaze.

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  2. Hello, Ann! It's fun to hear that other people had this, too! I wonder how many variations and names it has.

    Almond glaze and sliced almonds sounds amazing- now I'm off on a hypothetical baking tangent...almond paste baked between layers?- the possibilities are endless! I love that food can connect us to the past and to others in so many ways.

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