Paul’s Kransekake

YOU WILL NEED: A set of Kransekake moulds; 2 piping bags, each fitted with a small, plain nozzle.

1 To make the dough, tip the ground almonds and icing sugar into a bowl, add the beaten egg whites and the almond extract and mix to a dough with your hands. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and chill for a minimum of 2 hours, preferably overnight.

2 Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Lightly oil the kransekake moulds and sprinkle with semolina, shaking off any excess. Divide the chilled dough into 6 pieces, then divide each of these into 3 different sized pieces; small, medium and large. Roll each of these pieces into fingerthick lengths and sit them in the moulds, joining the ends by squashing them together. When you have rolled all the pieces out and filled the moulds, you will have 6 moulds, each with 3 rings in increasing sizes.

3 Transfer the moulds to the heated oven and bake for 10 minutes, until golden. Leave to cool in the moulds until hardened, then remove from the moulds to a wire rack to cool completely.

4 To make the icing, whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until frothy. Add the icing sugar, a spoonful at a time, and fold in. Beat until very stiff and white, and it stands up in peaks. Spoon half of the icing into a separate bowl and colour with red colouring paste. Spoon this into a piping bag fitted with a small, plain writing nozzle. Spoon the white icing into a separate piping bag also fitted with a small, plain nozzle.

5 To assemble the kransekake, sort the cooked rings into decreasing sizes. Pipe a few dots of white icing onto the base of the largest ring and stick it on the centre of a large, round serving plate. Pipe the white and red icing in a zig-zag pattern around the ring and sprinkle with the edible glitter.

6 Place the next biggest ring on top of the iced ring (the piped icing will keep it in place) and pipe red and white icing in a zig-zag pattern as for the first ring, sprinkling with glitter. Repeat with the remaining rings, in decreasing size order until you have a tower of 18 iced, glittery rings.