The Great British Bake Off is one my favorite shows, inspiring new bakes, new flavors, and new techniques! Join me on my journey to bake through all the Season 13 Challenges.
Since replicating Season 8 of the Great British Bake Off wasn’t enough, I decided to try my hand at a different season! This time, I am working on season 13 which is the most recent season! This season had some great bake ideas as well as some not-so-great ones (but we’ll get there when we get there).
So, I figured, let’s do this all again! One of the big challenges I wanted to attempt this time around was coming up with original ideas for the signature and showstopper challenges instead of doing a recreation. On your mark… Get set… Bake!
The final challenge for Patisserie week is a Swedish Krokan! From my understanding, this is a like a cake / cookie crossover that has a nutty base and is highly decorated with royal icing. I decided that I want to do a celebration of board games by making a die at the base and a tower of decorated meeples stretching towards the sky.
This was a daunting challenge. Mainly because the instructions felt too simple. I have always found making cookie dough very easy and the Krokan recipe felt cookie dough adjacent. With so few ingredients, I was worried the result would be too simple. But construction was an extreme challenge. I would have approached this project a little differently if I knew how it was going to turn out.
Check out the Season 13 Great British Bake Off Page to see other bakes from this series or the Make section for more recipes! Leave a comment below and let me know what you think and how the recipe works for you!
Ingredients
For such a massive structure, I honestly expected to use a lot of ingredients but that was not the case! The two different flavored dough required some different fruit, but powdered sugar and eggs ran through all three recipes. I did not have enough powdered sugar or almond flour in the house for this recipe so that did require some shopping.
Process
Making the Dough
The process for making the dough was much simpler than I anticipated. I mixed the flour, powdered sugar, and salt until they were well combined. Then I added in the egg whites and fruit zest. And that is all that is needed to make the Krokan dough.
I wrapped the dough and let it chill. The recipe that I used said to chill the dough overnight, but I wouldn’t have had time to do that on the actual show, so I decided to do about an hour chill or so. But I would do an overnight chill if I was giving myself that time. The dough was still sticky to work with even after an hour. Overnight would have firmed everything up and made it easier to work with.
Both doughs are made the exact same way which makes them relatively easy to handle. I had considered dying the dough to bring a pop of color to the dish but a part of me wanted to keep it in a more classic vibe. Choosing classic felt like the right way to go.
Shaping the Die
I feel Shaping was both simple and complicated at the same time. Each dough required a different approach. The lemon dough became the die at the bottom of the structure. I divided the dough evenly into 6 pieces (one for each side) and then rolled out each piece into a square. And all squares must be the same size.
This is the most precise I have ever been on a bake. I am not one to weight dough because I like to wing it most of the time. But a showstopper deserved perfection. Or something close to it. Or my best effort really.
One major challenge I had during shaping was the dough wanting to stick to the rolling pin. This was not ideal for cooking making… At some point, the dough got so sticky that I needed to put down a piece of wax paper between the cookie and the rolling pin.
Then it was time to do a baking dance! I had about three trays worth of Krokan and an oven that could only handle 2 at a time. And each tray needed to bake for 30 minutes. I felt like a whirling dervish going back and forth.
Shaping the Tower (Meeples)
The meeples were an easier time. I rolled out the dough into a thin layer and then just used cutters to cut out the shapes. I needed 4 of each size to hold up each layer of the tower. But I had enough to do at least six of each size. And extra is better! I can use any excess to decorate the plate and surrounding area.
The rings were a little tricker of a time, I just kind of estimated that size that they would have to be. Although, given the chance to do this again, I would much prefer circles to rings since they would be easier to place the meeples on. And it would feel less delicate.
Finally, it was time to bake. Once again, I did this in batches because there were too many pieces to fit into the oven at once.
Royal Icing
But I still needed something to hold all of these pieces together. Royal icing was the easiest choice because my research showed that it was commonly used with these types of bakes. And it is one of the simplest things to make!
I put a lot of powdered sugar and egg whites into a bowl and mixed. Seriously, putting 4 cups of powdered sugar (this is a pound of the stuff) just felt like my mouth was about to rot out. I know it was needed but it feels so excessive.
I originally planned to dye the royal icing different colors so I could have one color for the die and then a rainbow of colors climbing up the tower. But the construction was already hard enough! If I had more of a concrete idea of the process that I was about to get into, I would have planned a little more.
In the end, I decided to only use one color (a light purple) for all the decorations on the die and the meeples. (Also, for the assembly)
Die Assembly & Decoration
The last step of this process is assembling and decorating everything. I decorated everything after assembly, but I still wish I had done some decorations before I added them to this ridiculous structure.
First was assembling and decorating the die. One thing I did not expect was for the krokan to puff out. The dough acted almost like a macaron (which leads to me to a lot of questions about almond flour and baking). But puffy surfaces and rough edges made it difficult to make a cube.
I also was not using the most whipped royal icing. The icing was under whipped and took longer to dry and did not hold its shape as well. I was able to put all the sides together (with some difficulty), but the icing felt a little too sloppy for me. So, I decided to go over the edges with a more decorative pattern.
I also piped on the pips to get the cube a more dice like feel. I really love the way this turned out! Although, I am not very gentle and accidentally punctured the krokan in a couple of places just due to pressure. This is something I need to keep an eye out for.
Tower Assembly & Decoration
Then it was onto assembling the tower. Which was nerve wrecking in many ways… I originally wanted to attach the heads to the ring and then flip everything over and attach it to the die. This didn’t really work out the way that I wanted. I ended up putting the meeples on the die and building it from the bottom up. Which… makes sense.
I was a bundle of nerves during this step because I was terrified that the meeples would fall. Luckily the rings on top helped distribute the weight and allowed the meeples to dry into position a little easier.
The meeple on top was a challenge and required a lot of icing to keep it in place. But I got there! The look of the tower was a little… plain. I decided to use the remaining icing to decorate the meeples and rings to the best of my ability!
Reflections
Making a Krokan was an adventure. There were some high highs and some low lows. I had to make the dough several times over because some shaping experiments did not turn out to plan. But I didn’t mind because the krokan was delicious. I could not stop myself from munching while I worked.
Again, decoration is not my strong suit… But I think I did the best with my limited abilities. And the more I try, the better I get. I was really happy with the way the structure turned out. But if I was to do this again, I would make the die even bigger and the tower even taller (probably by doubling the dough recipe for both).
While I might not make this exact structure again, I will one-hundred percent be using this recipe in the future. It is easy to make, is dairy free, and tastes heavenly. Even though I made a lot, I was left wanting more.
Lessons
What is a Krokan?
From what I can tell, Krokan in this case is traditional Swedish wedding cake (the current Swedish king and queen had one, for example). It is made from individual intricate shapes made of a marzipan/almond based mass with sugar and egg whites. Then it is baked and assembled.
The most interesting thing I found was that the recipe seems to be pretty much identical to the Danish/Norwegian Kransekake (“wreath cake”), just shaped more intricately. That honestly helped a lot when I was researching recipes and trying to make comparisons.
recipe
Board Game Lover Krokan
Ingredients
Lemon Dough
- 2 Cups Almond Flour
- 3 Cups Powdered Sugar
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- 2 Egg Whites
- 3 Lemons zested
Orange Dough
- 2 Cups Almond Flour
- 3 Cups Powdered Sugar
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- 2 Egg Whites
- 3 Oranges zested
Royal Icing
- 4 Cups Powdered sugar
- 3 Egg Whites or 5 Tablespoon Meringue Powdered and ½ Cup Water
- Food Coloring optional
Instructions
Lemon Dough
- In a large bowl, mix almond flour, powdered sugar a salt. Then add in egg white and lemon zest and mix until a dough has formed (the texture should be like cookie dough).
- Shape into a rectangle like shape, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit with the rack in the middle of the oven.
- Divide the dough into 6 equal parts. Roll out each part into a 5-inch by 5-inch square. Place on top of a line baking tray. Using a circular cutter. Cut out dough to make each square a different side of a D6 die.
- Bake for about 30 minutes (Not all sides of the die will be able to fit into the oven at once, multiple rounds of baking will be required). Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from the tray.
Orange Dough
- In a large bowl, mix almond flour, powdered sugar a salt. Then add in egg white and orange zest and mix until a dough has formed (the texture should be like cookie dough).
- Shape into a rectangle like shape, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit with the rack in the middle of the oven.
- Roll out the dough until it is ¼ of an inch thick. Using multiple sized cutters of the same design, cut out 4-6 pieces of each size. (I used a meeple design – these cutters can be found on Etsy). Then cute out rings (4 sizes based off of dice size)
- Bake for about 30 minutes (Not all sides of the pieces will be able to fit into the oven at once, multiple rounds of baking will be required). Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from tray.
Royal Icing
- In a large bowl, whisk together sugar and egg whites. Mix on low speed to get the powder wet and then increase to a medium-high speed until the mixture fully combines and thickens. (This process should take about 8 minutes). Dye royal icing as desired.
Assembly
- Using the icing, combine the lemon panels to for a die. Reference an actual die to create the pips in the right place with icing. Make sure the icing is set to keep the panels in place.
- Using the icing, dot the feet (bottom) of 4 of the meeples (or whatever shape you are using) and create place one just inside each edge of the cube. Using icing to dot the tops of the shape and place a ring on top.
- Repeat the above step going through each color icing and using the next size down shape to create a tower.
- Use any extra icing to decorate the die and the shapes!
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