My Mother's Kringlas

Every holiday season when I was growing up in Madelia, MN, my mother, Edith, would bake hundreds of Christmas cookies, scrolls, and kringlas--a Norwegian pastry twisted into figure eights and flavored with anise. She'd put the goodies in big round cookie tins and store them in the unheated porch off the dining room. The treats would carry us through Christmas and well into the winter.

It's been a long time since I've tasted my mother's pastries. Twenty years ago she hung up her apron, unable to follow the recipes or operate the oven. She was seventy-five. Since then, Mom has become less and less verbal, but she can be alert, follow a conversation, and communicate what she wants.

Although she doesn't say much, Mom's sweet tooth has not diminished. She loves pecan pie, chocolates, cookies, and ice cream. She may pick at the meat loaf, baked potato, and green beans at the Madelia nursing home, but she spoons up every last bit of her brownie.

As a special treat for her 95th birthday this week, I baked a batch of kringlas. I had tried in the past to make them from a recipe she wrote by hand in an old spiral notebook. The results looked like kringlas but were dry and tough.

Recently my sister sent me her recipe for Mom's kringlas (see below). This recipe said to chill the dough overnight before rolling it into ropes. Doh! I made another attempt, and this time the results were . . . well . . . surprisingly good.

I will never equal my mother's baking skills, nor attain her artistry in creating uniform figure eights, but my new kringlas have the taste and the texture I remember. I hope that the anise-flavored pastries will trigger some long dormant synapses in my gentle mother's brain.

Becky


Edith Bohan's Kringlas

1 cup sugar
2 Tbl butter
2 eggs
1 tsp anise 1 cup sour cream
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt

Mix sugar, butter, beaten eggs and anise. Stir baking soda into the sour cream and add. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Refrigerate overnight. Roll, rope fashion, cut in strips and fold in knot or figure 8. Bake until light brown at 375 degrees.

Note: Dough must be chilled well. Work with small amount at a time.