Kransekage is the traditional Danish New Year's Eve food associated with jumping from chairs at midnight.
Kransekage, also written kransekake, is a tower of concentric rings made chiefly from almond paste, sugar and egg white. The rings are stacked from largest to smallest and often decorated with icing. In Denmark, the cake is strongly associated with New Year's Eve and is served as the clock approaches midnight.
A separate Danish custom involves people jumping from a chair or sofa at midnight, symbolically leaping into the new year. The cake and the jump are neighboring traditions, but they are not the same ritual: one is food and the other is a physical gesture.
Æbleskiver are spherical Danish pancakes, smørrebrød is open-faced bread, and risalamande is a rice dessert. All are Danish foods, but none is the ring-shaped New Year's cake called kransekage.