I believe this may just be the best thing to come out of our kitchen to date! A conversion of my grandmother’s recipe, the pastry or kringle is crisp but still soft and flaky and can be wrapped around any kind of filling from apple to cherry, lemon or even cream cheese. It’s also relatively easy to make – especially if you have a food processor. The dough rolls out and bakes up like a dream!

My Bedstemor (Danish for Grandmother) called this “Fodselsdag Kringle” but I knew it as Danish Birthday Cake. But Bedstemor didn’t just keep this kringle for birthdays. She ALWAYS had one on hand and it was ALWAYS apple. With my mom’s birthday coming up, I wanted to make something special, so I found bedstemor’s recipe and decided to give it a go and at the same time, convert it to gluten free. Boy, am I glad I did. This is truly some of the best baking I have ever done and will be a part of my go-to list of recipes from now on.

Like this? You might also want to check out our other gluten free pastry recipes:

Mary’s Magnificent Pie Crust

Gluten free turnovers

Pastry Pockets

 

What you’ll need

½ tablespoon yeast

¼ cup warm water

½ teaspoon sugar

1 ¾ cups Cup 4 Cup all-purpose gluten free flour

TIP: We finally found Cup 4 Cup here in Red Deer at Save On Foods but if you can’t get it where you are, check out this copycat recipe here.

¼ cup almond flour

Pinch salt

½ cup and 2 tablespoons hard margarine or cold butter

2 egg yolks (reserve some of the whites for an egg wash)

2 tablespoons sour cream

Sprinkle of sugar for garnish

Approximately 2 cups of pie filling

TIP: My grandmother’s recipe for the filling was not exactly scientific: “Cook apples and sugar until it makes a sauce. Add vanilla and cinnamon” 🙁  So for this one we used most of a can of apple pie filling and added ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg. It worked great.

1 ½ cups icing sugar

2 teaspoons soft margarine or butter

½ teaspoon almond flavoring

¼ teaspoon vanilla

2 to 3 tablespoons milk or cream

What you’ll do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium sized bowl, dissolve sugar in water and add yeast to activate it.

In a small bowl, mix the egg yolks and the sour cream.

In your food processor, add flours and salt (and xanthan gum if needed. Cup 4 cup has it included, but if you use a flour mix that doesn’t be sure to add a teaspoon of it) and pulse to combine. Cut the hard margarine or butter (we used margarine in this recipe) into cubes and sprinkle them on top of the flour. Pulse the mixture about 10 times until it is crumbly.

TIP: If you don’t have a food processor, you can also do this by hand with a pastry blender.

Pour the yolk mixture into the yeast mixture and stir together (the yeast should activate for at least 5 minutes before adding the yolks.)

Now pour the liquid over the flour mixture and pulse (or blend by hand) just until the dough comes together.

Remove the dough from the processor, shape into a ball on parchment, and knead it until it comes together nicely – about 6 or 7 times.

Cover with another piece of parchment and roll out into a rectangle approximately 10 x 12 inches.

Remove the top parchment and add filling by spooning a 4 inch strip of filling across the middle of the rectangle from 10 inch side to 10 inch side. Leave about 3 inches free of filling on the top and bottom and about 2 inches on the ends. Fold as you would an enchilada – ends up over the filling first and then the top and bottom over. If the top and bottom meet, you can seal the dough with water. If they don’t, don’t worry. The dough will open up to reveal the filling inside as it bakes. Beautiful!

TIP: If you are particularly crafty, or brave, you can cut the 3 inch top and bottom pieces into strips with a sharp knife and fold them over each other to look like a braid.

Move the pastry onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

TIP: Use the parchment the pastry is sitting on and just move the entire thing over.

Take some of the left over egg whites and beat lightly. Using a pastry brush, brush some of the whites over the top of the pastry and then sprinkle the entire kringle with white sugar.

Bake for 35 – 40 minutes or until golden brown in colour.

Remove and cool.

To make Glaze:

TIP: The glaze is what really makes this pastry sing. Don’t be tempted to skip it.

Check out Geoff’s handiwork!

Mix the icing sugar, margarine, extracts and 2 tablespoons of cream or milk together until they form an icing. Add more milk by the teaspoonful until you get the consistency you want.

TIP: You can use straight vanilla if you don’t want the almond flavour. Geoff doesn’t care for it, but I love it.

Once the pastry is cool, you can drizzle on the glaze using a spoon or pastry bag.

Let the glaze harden and serve.

Best eaten the first day. By day two it had hardened up a bit but still tasted great.

 

Like this? You might also want to check out our other gluten free pastry recipes:

Mary’s Magnificent Pie Crust

Gluten free turnovers

Pastry Pockets