Ingredients
Equipment
Method
Preparing the Puff Pastry
- Brush one piece of puff pastry with a little bit of water, and stack another piece on top. Repeat this, until you have stacked all four pieces on top of each other.
- Roll out the stack of puff pastry to a thickness of 6mm (¼"). We used a rolling pin with ¼ spacers, to make sure it was even all across.
- Rest the dough in the refrigerator for 10 minutes
- Trim the edges if necessary; you want the edges to be as straight as possible, and the corners 90º.
- Cut the puff pastry into strips of approximately 1 - 1½ cm (3/8 - 5/8").
Shaping the Krakelingen
- Shaping the krakelingen seems difficult, but it's pretty easy. Lay one strip of your puff pastry in front of you, on your work surface, horizontally. Make note of where the center of the strip is.
- Take the right end, and loop it so that it lands on the center of the strip.
- Place a finger on each side of the loop. This is to make sure that the krakeling has its characteristic shape, and there is even spacing all around.
- Take the left end, and loop it around your fingers, until you get the right shape. You may have to stretch the dough a little
- Push the dough down gently with the palm of your hand.
- Place the krakeling on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, with the looped ends facing down.
- Repeat this with all your strips of dough.
- Rest the krakelingen in the fridge for 10 minutes
Sugaring the Krakelingen
- Line your work surface with some parchment paper, and put a layer of sugar down.
- Lay 3-4 krakelingen on the sugar, lengthwise, pointing away from you.
- Sprinkle a layer of sugar on top of the krakelingen.
- With a rolling pin, gently roll over the cookies. You want to make sure the sugar adheres to the dough, and elongate the krakelingen by approximately 1.5 to 2 times.
- Shake off any excess sugar, and place them back on the parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, with the looped ends facing up.
- Repeat for the remaining krakelingen.
- Rest the cookies in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Baking the Krakelingen
- Preheat your oven to 175ºC (350F) in convection mode.
- Put the krakelingen in the oven, and let them bake for at least 15 minutes before checking them.
- Check the cookies, and rotate the cookie sheet if necessary. (In our oven, the back is hotter than the front, so rotating them makes it so the back ones don't burn).
- Bake them for another 5 - 10 minutes, or until they're golden brown, and the sugar starts to melt. Be careful, if you leave them in too long, the sugar can burn! Sugar goes from nicely caramelized to burnt quickly.
- Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, and transfer the krakelingen to a rack for cooling.
- When they are fully cooled, you can store them in an airtight container for several days. (If they last that long!)
