Smultringer

In Norway it is a tradition to bake seven different kinds of cakes and cookies before Christmas. I must admit I haven't made them all, but so far we have four varieties in our cookie jars. It varies slightly from year to year what kinds we want to make, but the Norwegian donuts called "Smultringer" are a must. There are after all few things that taste as good as fresh donuts straight from the pan.

I have used the same recipe for years, and it is always successful.

2 eggs
150 grams of sugar
100 ml sour cream
150 ml cream
400 grams flour
1 teaspoon cardamom
3 teaspoons baking powder
A pinch of salt

Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy and mix in sour cream and cream. Stir the flour gently into the mix. The dough should be left cold for a few hours, preferably overnight in the refrigerator, before being rolled out to about one centimeter thickness.
We deep fry them in our wide Le Creuset sauté pan which is absolutely ideal for this sort of work.

You are supposed to fry them in lard, but that just smells too intense for me. I prefer coconut fat but you can use any kind of shortening.

We will probably need to make another batch of these gorgeous cakes this Christmas, because they tend to disappear quickly. Once when we invited some friends over to a Christmas workshop with baking, I fried more than 150 rings. It was a huge pile, and I thought that we would surely have donuts until Easter. But before the night was through, there was not a single donut left. The guests had munched up every single one of them

 Our ​​poodle boy was appointed the ring tester this year. A task he seemed to appreciate a lot.