Kringle, the signature Danish pastries, are filled with almond paste or fruit, like apples or blueberries (pictured above).
Writer: Jane Burns
Photos: Duane Tinkey
Around the holidays, you want those special treats for those you love. The problem is, your to-do list grows as long as a 6-year-old’s wish list for gifts.
Enter: The Kringle Man.
No, not the guy in the red suit named Kris. This one makes pastries, not toys, and he’s based in Elk Horn instead of the North Pole. James “The Kringle Man” Uren sells his Danish pastries year-round and statewide, including at the Christkindlmarket on Dec. 4-7 and 11-14 at Principal Park.
While Uren and his staff make a variety of baked goods, their signature item is kringle, especially around the holidays.
Most people “don’t take the time to make it unless there’s going to be a celebration, because it’s a pain,” Uren said. “Kringle is made for family gatherings and holidays. That’s the reason I think people are shocked that we’ve created a business out of the kringle and pastries.”
Kringle is a multi-layered pastry made from either a buttery laminated or puff pastry dough, both flaky and both messy. It’s traditionally filled with almond paste, but also fruits or other sweets. The original Danish kringle were shaped like a pretzel, the version from the American kringle mothership of Racine, Wisconsin, are oval, while others, like those from The Kringle Man, are rectangular.
The rectangle aligns the retired teacher’s “work smarter, not harder” approach to his business, which has weathered myriad changes in its community and the overall retail market since it opened in 2015. In fact, this story is less about a baker or a business than a whole community celebrating and holding on to its heritage.
“It’s the tradition of Danish baking, the flakiness, the way you have to wipe it off your shirt,” Uren said. “What we’ve been able to do is recreate that in our own little world right here.”
Elk Horn, population 631, is six miles north of Interstate 80 about midway between Des Moines and Omaha. With nearby Kimballton, population 281, the area is the largest rural Danish settlement in the United States. While Uren is not Danish, he is nonetheless proud of his community’s heritage and how they’ve worked with him to keep it going, at least with the sweet treats.
When Uren retired from teaching in 2015, he opened the Village Cafe in Elk Horn in part to fill a void when the town’s popular Danish Inn closed. The building that housed the Village Cafe sold three years later and forced the cafe to close, so Uren kicked into entrepreneurial mode.
“Some of the people in town said, ‘We’re not having a Danish community without Danish bakers,’” Uren said. “Well, guess who they zeroed in on?”
Without a cafe, Uren moved up the street to open a bakery that concentrated on sweet treats, including kringle, following recipes he received from “Danish grandmothers,” combined with his own research and experimentation.
The Kringle Man was born.
Uren took kringle on the craft-show circuit, offering a unique product among the more standard fare at the shows. In 2019 he and his staff traveled 35,000 miles to more than 70 craft shows and community events, and they continue that schedule.
When COVID brought craft shows and Uren’s traveling bakery to a halt, he and his staff switched gears to sell online and in grocery stores. Grocers suggested selling smaller kringle, so The Kringle Man provided options. Today, a large kringle, 15 inches long and 5 inches wide, sells for $16; a slightly smaller version sells for $11.
In 2022, a space opened on Elk Horn’s Main Street, and Uren opened a new cafe called The Kringle Man. It’s a spot for morning coffee and pastries, and a home base for the traveling team
to support the bottom line. “With Kimballton, we don’t have 1,000 people between us,” Uren said. “You can’t keep a bakery alive with 750 people.”
The Kringle Man’s staff baked 27,000 kringles last year. They come in 11 flavors. Almond is most popular, while cherry, raspberry and apple fight it out for the top fruit. Uren adds a hint of almond paste into the fruit fillings to emphasize the traditional Danish flavors.
The Kringle Man also sells what Uren calls a Danish letter, a play on the popular Dutch letters. They capitalized on basic confusion. “We had a bus tour coming to town, like 60 retired folks out of Kansas City or something, who called ahead and said, ‘We’ve gotten those letter things whenever we go through Iowa, can you make that?’” Uren said.
He called other bakers to learn more about Dutch letters and tweaked the recipe to make it more Danish, with more almond paste and a flakier pastry. He sold 12,000 packages last year.
But kringle remains the star of the show, right there in the business name. And while kringle’s Iowa hometown isn’t a big place, the Kringle Man insists it’s the reason for his success.
“I’m not successful because of who I am,” Uren said. “I’m successful because of what the community has built.”
The Kringle Man cafe and bakery is at 4234 Main St. in Elk Horn, open 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Saturday. In Elk Horn, Kringle Man baked goods are also sold at the Danish Windmill and the Museum of Danish America. Online: thekringleman.com.
