Klein­ur

Grow­ing up, there were always klein­ur (Ice­landic dough­nut twists) at Grand­ma Effie’s house. They freeze well, so she would make a large batch and have some out for snack­ing — as well as a hun­dred oth­er treat options — when we vis­it­ed. I have made her recipe quite a few times, but mine nev­er taste the same. They are good, but aren’t infused with the same intense grand­ma love that Effie’s were.

These car­damom-scent­ed, crispy twists of dough have lots of sur­face area to coat with sug­ar. Serve them with strong cof­fee. My recent expe­ri­ence in Ice­land proved that these are still a com­mon bak­ery treat, although the Ice­landic ver­sions are super­sized, very puffy, and with­out the defin­ing car­damom fla­vor I’m accus­tomed to.

Yield: Makes 35 – 40 donuts

1 large egg

1 cup gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar, plus 1 cup more for coating

1 1/2 table­spoons unsalt­ed but­ter, melt­ed and cooled

1/4 tea­spoon vanil­la extract

1/2 cup milk

1 tea­spoon bak­ing powder

1/2 tea­spoon Dia­mond Crys­tal kosher salt or 1/4 tea­spoon oth­er kosher salt

1/2 tea­spoon ground cardamom

1/4 tea­spoon ground or fresh­ly grat­ed nutmeg

3 cups all-pur­pose flour, plus more for dusting

Neu­tral oil, such as veg­etable or canola, for frying

Whisk the egg in a large bowl, to break the yolk. Add the sug­ar, but­ter, vanil­la, and milk and whisk to com­bine. In anoth­er bowl, whisk togeth­er the bak­ing pow­der, salt, car­damom, nut­meg, and flour. Slow­ly stir the dry ingre­di­ents into the wet ones with a wood­en spoon or stur­dy spat­u­la. Once the dough gets too stiff for stir­ring, knead it by hand until no dry patch­es remain. Divide the dough into two balls and wrap each in plas­tic. Refrig­er­ate for at least an hour or up to overnight.

If you have a deep fry­er, you are in luck. Fill it with oil and heat to 325ºF accord­ing to the manufacturer’s direc­tions. Oth­er­wise, pour at least 2 inch­es of oil into a heavy, wide-bot­tomed pot. (I use my grandma’s very heavy and well-sea­soned 4‑inch-deep cast-iron skil­let.) Heat the oil slow­ly over medi­um heat. You want it to reach 325ºF but not burn, so keep an eye on it while it is heat­ing. If it is get­ting too hot, remove it from the burn­er, then bring it back to 325ºF when you’re ready to fry. Line one or two bak­ing sheets with sev­er­al lay­ers of paper tow­els and set aside next to the deep-fry­er or stove.

Gen­er­ous­ly flour a counter or board. Place one of the dough por­tions on the counter and roll it out to a rec­tan­gle about 1/8 inch thick. With a piz­za wheel or sharp knife, cut the dough length­wise into strips 1 1/2 to 2 inch­es wide.

Then cut the dough cross­wise so that each strip is rough­ly 4 inch­es long. (The dough will resem­ble a grid. See pho­tos below.)

Cut a length­wise slit about 2 inch­es long in the cen­ter of each rec­tan­gle, being care­ful not to cut through to the end.

You could twist the dough right now, but I find that the klein­ur main­tain their shape bet­ter if twist­ed right before I drop them into the oil.

Test that the oil is ready by fry­ing an end strip of dough or a chunk of bread. If it siz­zles and turns gold­en imme­di­ate­ly, it’s prob­a­bly there. (To be pos­i­tive, check with a deep-fry­ing ther­mome­ter, if you have one.) Work­ing with a few rec­tan­gles at a time, fold one short end through the slit to give you an elon­gat­ed twist (almost a dou­ble helix) and drop it care­ful­ly into the oil. Depend­ing on the size of your pan or fry­er, you can prob­a­bly fry 5 or 6 klein­ur at a time.

NOTE: Main­tain­ing the oil tem­per­a­ture in a pot is some­what tricky — you may have to adjust heat every few minutes.

Fry the klein­ur until they float, about 20 sec­onds. Turn them over with a slot­ted spoon or spi­der (my favorite tool for this) and fry until gold­en on the oth­er side. Remove from the oil and place on the pre­pared bak­ing sheet. Con­tin­ue fry­ing addi­tion­al batch­es until you have used all of the cut dough.

Repeat with the sec­ond half of the dough. You may want to turn off the heat under the oil while roll and cut­ting this batch so that it doesn’t get too hot.

If serv­ing them imme­di­ate­ly, pour 1 cup of sug­ar into a large bowl or heavy paper bag. Dunk a few of the klein­ur in the sug­ar and toss or shake to coat them. If not serv­ing imme­di­ate­ly, store them unsug­ared in a cov­ered con­tain­er or reseal­able plas­tic bag at room tem­per­a­ture for up to 4 days. They also freeze beau­ti­ful­ly in a heavy-duty reseal­able plas­tic bag for up to a month. Defrost at room tem­per­a­ture. To get them crunchy again if they were stored or frozen, heat them on a bak­ing sheet in a 350ºF oven for 4 to 6 min­utes, then toss in gran­u­lat­ed sugar.

Adapt­ed from BernBaum’s: Recipes from Fargo’s Nordic-Jew­ish Deli by Andrea Baum­gard­ner (Dot­tir Press, Jan­u­ary 2026)