Photo: Jonathunder · CC BY-SA 3.0
Krumkake (Cone Wafer Cookie)
The Norwegian wafer baked thin in a patterned iron and rolled around a cone while it is still hot. The trick is not in the batter but in the timing: a wafer off the iron stays pliable for about ten seconds and then sets like glass, and bending it after that shatters it. So the cone has to be in your hand before the wafer comes off, and you can only bake one at a time. Nothing in it leavens anything — the thinness and the iron do all the work.
Ingredients
- Batter (makes 20-24)
- eggs · at room temperature3
- sugar150 g
- melted butter · cooled before it goes in125 g
- double cream125 ml
- plain or cake flour150 g
- ground cardamom · the traditional flavouring0.5 tsp
- vanilla extract1 tsp
- salt1 pinch
- To fill
- double cream · whipped, at the table200 ml
- icing sugar1 tbsp
- lingonberry or raspberry jam · if you have it4 tbsp
- Equipment
- a krumkake iron · a pizzelle iron or a thin waffle plate will do1
- a wooden cone · or roll one out of stiff paper1
Steps
- ⏲ 5 min
Whisk the eggs and sugar 3-4 minutes until pale, then beat in the cooled melted butter and the cream.
- ⏲ 3 min
Add the flour, cardamom, salt and vanilla and mix only until the lumps are gone. Nothing goes in to leaven it — there is no yeast and no baking powder in this cookie.
- ⏲ 30 min
Rest the batter 30 minutes so the flour hydrates. It thickens as it stands, so that is the point at which to judge the consistency.
- ⏲ 10 min
Heat the iron over medium-low until it is properly hot. You will usually sacrifice the first wafer — that one sets your heat and your timing.
- ⏲ 40 sec
With the cone already in your hand, put a tablespoon of batter in the middle of the iron, close it and bake 30-40 seconds, until pale brown shows between the pattern.
- ⏲ 10 sec
Open the iron, lift the wafer out and roll it round the cone at once. It stays pliable for about ten seconds, and after that you are not bending it but breaking it. Same problem as the caramel on dobos torta, and this window is shorter.
- ⏲ 1 min
Hold it for ten seconds or so, slide the cone out and stand it on a rack. Once completely cold it holds its shape in the hand.
- ⏲ 30 min
Repeat with the rest of the batter. One at a time, which is why this cookie takes as long as it does.
- ⏲ 5 min
Fill with whipped cream and jam as you serve them. Filled ahead, they go soft within half an hour.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- Left flat: cooled without rolling, it is a thin patterned biscuit. The Italian pizzelle is usually this shape.
- As a cup: pressed into a glass while hot it becomes a bowl for ice cream or cream. An ice cream cone is the same trick — a hot wafer rolled round a cone.
- Unfilled: in Norway they are more often kept unfilled in a tin. Filled, they soften within half an hour, so unfilled is really the default. The biscuit that puts syrup between two of them precisely in order to make them soften is the stroopwafel.
- As a Christmas cookie: krumkake is commonly one of the "seven sorts" baked for Christmas in Norway. It is not tied to the season, though — the same iron and batter make ice cream cones.
- Instead of cardamom: lemon zest or anise. Cardamom is the same Nordic flavouring as in kanelbulle.
Tips
- The whole difficulty of this cookie is inside ten seconds. A thin sheet of sugar, butter and starch is pliable while hot and shatters when cold, and the crossover is roughly ten seconds. Bend it after that and you break it. Same problem as dobos torta scoring its caramel before it sets, and this window is shorter.
- So the order of work is inverted. Looking for the cone after the wafer is baked is already too late. The cone has to be in your hand before you close the iron, and not doing anything else while it bakes is the whole technique.
- One at a time. Bake two together and you will be rolling the first while watching the second set. Forty minutes for twenty wafers is what the method costs; there is no room to hurry it.
- Nothing leavens it. Waffles whip the whites separately and swap some flour for starch to build a shell and a hollow. Krumkake has none of that machinery and is crisp on thinness alone — which is why too much batter gives you a thin cake rather than a wafer.
- Budget the first one as a loss. Irons differ in thickness and heat capacity, so whether it is 30 seconds or 45 is something only one test wafer will tell you.
- Broken ones get crushed. Failures go crumbled into cream or over ice cream. This batter is meant to be fragile.
- Fill at the last moment. It belongs to the group serving temperature calls the dishes with no grace period, and cream shortens the clock to about half an hour.
The basics behind this dish
- Eggs: Coagulation Temperatures and What They DecideWhite sets at 62°C, yolk at 68°C. Those two numbers explain scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, steamed custard and crème anglaise all at once.
- Why Sauces Split: Emulsions and Pan SaucesA cream sauce breaking and a carbonara scrambling are the same failure. Temperature and emulsifiers — plus how to bring a split sauce back.
- Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
More of the same kind
More from this country
Norwegian →
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