Kringle

Kringle is a pastry developed in Scandinavia although some claim its roots are in Germany.

In Danish and Norwegian the word is "kringle", plural "kringler"; Swedish: "kringla", plural "kringlor"; Icelandic: "kringla", plural "kringlur"; Finnish: "rinkeli". The word origins from Old Norse "kringla", meaning ring or circle.

In Scandinavia kringle denotes the pretzel-like knotted shape rather than the pastry type. Kringles may be made from puff paste (like Danish pastry) or yeast dough, filled with remonce or marzipan and raisins, sprinkled with coarse sugar, nut flakes or iced. Small "saltkringler" also exist, being the Danish word for pretzels. "Kommenskringler" are half-hand-sized breads in kringle shape, made from unsweetened yeast dough with caraway seeds. "Sukkerkringler" are similar, but sprinkled with sugar instead of caraway. Kringles are still popular items in modern Danish bakeries. The kringle symbol is one of the few ancient guild signs still being used and a golden kringle sign is often hung outside bakeries.

In the United States, kringles are hand-rolled from Danish pastry dough ("wienerbrød" dough) that has been rested overnight before shaping, filling, and baking. Many layers of the flaky dough are layered, then shaped in an oval. After filling with fruit, nut, or other flavor combinations, the pastry is baked and iced.

In America, kringles were, at one time, chiefly produced in Racine, Wisconsin, the North American city with the largest population of Danes outside of Greenland (which is a self-governing portion of the Kingdom of Denmark), and a center of expatriate Danish culture. [See Danish colonization of the Americas] ). Kringle and Danish culture are an important part of Racine's cultural identity, and several local bakeries make and ship the hundreds of thousands of kringles per year each. [New York Times, " [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=950DE7DC123AF93AA35754C0A96F948260 Fare of the country: Wisconsin, Danish Pastry With a Classic Twist] ." By MARIALISA CALTA, July 9, 1989.] The Ballard area of Seattle, Washington, Solvang, California, and Burr Ridge, Illinois are among the few other places to find kringles in the U.S.

The shape of the kringle has given name to a similarly entangled feature found in some proteins, the so-called Kringle domain.

In 2005 Dana College in Blair Nebraska held a Kringle Kontest which was won by Kirsten's Danish Bakery in Burr Ridge, Illinois. Kirsten may have had a slight advantage in being the only Danish Bakery in the US which employs traditional Danish Bakers trained in Denmark. [http://www.dana.edu/news/n100605.html]

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