Frankfurter Kranz

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •24cm ring cake tin or Kranzform
• •Hand mixer or stand mixer
• •Serrated knife
• •Offset spatula
• •Piping bag with star nozzle

Instructions

1. 1

   Bake the ring

   Heat the oven to 175C. Butter and flour a 24cm ring tin well, because the crown shape only looks clever if it comes out in one piece. Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt until pale, then beat in the eggs one at a time; room-temperature eggs blend into the fat instead of curdling it. Fold in the flour, cornflour, and baking powder with the milk, spoon into the tin, and bake 40 to 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cool the cake completely before slicing, because warm crumb tears under the knife.

2. 2

   Cook the pudding

   Whisk a little of the milk with the sugar, cornflour, yolks, and vanilla until smooth, then bring the rest of the milk just to a simmer. Whisk the hot milk into the yolk mixture, return everything to the pan, and cook until thick and bubbling for a full minute. That minute cooks out the starch taste and sets the pudding firmly enough to hold butter. Press film directly on the surface and let it cool to room temperature.

3. 3

   Make the Krokant

   Melt the sugar in a wide pan until amber, then stir in the butter and chopped nuts. Keep it moving until the nuts smell toasted and the caramel is a shade darker than honey; pale Krokant tastes flat, and this cake needs the bitter edge. Scrape it onto baking paper, let it set, then chop it fine enough to cling to the cream but not so fine that it turns to dust.

4. 4

   Beat the cream

   Beat the room-temperature butter until light, then spoon in the room-temperature pudding a little at a time. Same temperature, or it splits. If the cream looks curdled, keep beating gently; if it is too cold, warm the bowl briefly with your hands and beat again. German buttercream should be smooth, pale, and able to hold a ridge from the spatula.

5. 5

   Split and fill

   Cut the cooled ring horizontally into three even layers. Warm the redcurrant jelly or raspberry jam just until spreadable, because a thin sharp layer cuts the buttercream instead of dragging the crumb. Spread jam on the lower two layers, then a thin layer of buttercream over each, stacking the ring back into its crown shape.

6. 6

   Coat and finish

   Cover the outside and inside of the ring with buttercream, keeping back enough to pipe 12 small rosettes on top. Press the Krokant over the sides and top while the cream is still soft, so it grips. Pipe the rosettes, set a candied cherry on each, and chill the cake at least 2 hours. Let it stand 20 minutes before slicing, because cold buttercream tastes muted and cuts like wax. Schön ist, was schmeckt.

Chef Tips

• •Use redcurrant jelly if you can. Its sharpness is the cleanest answer to all that buttercream; raspberry jam works, but it should be strained and not too sweet.
• •The pudding and butter must meet at the same room temperature. This is the whole buttercream lesson. Cold pudding breaks the cream, warm pudding melts it.
• •Toast the Krokant dark amber. You want caramel and toasted nut, not pale sugar gravel.
• •A ring tin matters. A Bundt tin with deep decoration can trap the crumb and make slicing harder; a plain Kranzform, a ring mould, gives cleaner layers.
• •Keep the crumbs from trimming the cake. Dry them and fold them into the Krokant coating if you like. Weggeworfen wird nichts.

Advance Preparation

• •Bake the ring cake one day ahead, wrap it well, and slice it the next day; a rested crumb cuts cleaner than a fresh one.
• •Cook the pudding up to one day ahead and keep it covered in the refrigerator, then bring it fully to room temperature before beating it into the butter.
• •The assembled cake keeps 2 days chilled. Bring it out 20 to 30 minutes before serving so the buttercream softens and the Krokant still has bite.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 155g)