You can call me (the Anti-) Ray-Ray

Or:  How I spent my weekend

(burning my fingertips slaving over a hot krumkake iron and what thanks do I get, huh? Huh?)

No, I’ll never be Rachel Ray, grinning maniacally out at you from every box of Triscuits on every shelf at every grocery store in the universe

(not to mention haunting the Wege’s nightmares with her patented recipe for fast-acting saltpeter.)

On the other hand, I’ll probably never inspire the volume of online idolatry and loathing that Our Little Miss Ray-Ray does

(altho I recently found out that I’m a goddess to the world’s few but devoted waterbuffalo fetishists, so that’s something.)

No, what I’m getting to is that I spent several hours of this past weekend making at least 8 dozen krumkake for the annual office Cookie Exchange.  Yep, I’m a regular trouper; a real team player.  I’m just thankful it wasn’t a Lutefisk Exchange.   Tild don’t play dat.

I invoke my namesake, my Swedish  grandma Tild often enough in this blog, but you may not be aware that — me being the tragic product of a mixed marriage –  I also have a Norwegian grandma. Her name was Betsy Dallelie, and this krumkake recipe is hers.

Grandma Dallelie’s Krumkake

6 eggs, room temperature
1 C. sugar
1 C. melted butter
1 tsp. whipping cream
1 C. flour
1 tsp. (rounded) ground cardamom

Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl until frothy. Add the (cooled) melted butter, whipping cream and sugar; mix well.
Sift the cardamom together with the flour. Add 1/2 of the flour and cardamom mixture to the eggs and sugar mixture; stir in completely, then add the other 1/2 of the flour and cardamom; mix well.

Heat up your krumkake iron.   Lucky me — 20 years ago my inlaws gave me a nonstick electric double krumkake iron like this one.  Even tho it’s nonstick, I still season the griddle surfaces with a little Canola oil cooking spray while the iron’s cold.

Drop a generous teaspoonful of batter in the center of each krumkake design on the heated iron surface and close the iron lid; cook for about 10 seconds, then open the iron and using a fork slide each krumkake out onto a paper towel on the table next to the krumkake iron.   Let the krumkake cool for a few seconds, then roll into a 2″ diameter hollow tube shape (it will end up looking kinda like cannoli or manicotti).
Don’t let the krumkake cool off too much or it will be too crisp to roll up.

Finally, I mix about 1/2 tsp cardamom into 1/2 C. powdered sugar and dust the tops of the finished krumkake.

Makes at least 4 dozen, with plenty of  miscellaneous mistakes and discards left over for the in-house Taste Test Team, which in my case means two teenagers and one only slightly older spouse.

There.  And I didn’t say “Yum” even once.

~