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LIVING IN DENMARK

Ten tasty pastries you should be able to identify if you live in Denmark

The making of Danish pastries is an art form all of its own, and you don't count as really integrated until you can name the most common types.

Ten tasty pastries you should be able to identify if you live in Denmark
The Danish kanelsnegl is similar to a cinnamon roll, but also comes in a myriad of other flavours like rum. (Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix)

It’s a sign of the cultural alchemy that went into creating Denmark’s delicious pastries that what American’s call a “Danish”, the Danes themselves call wienerbrød, or “Viennese bread”, with the very first brought to Denmark in the 1840s by enterprising Austrian bakers.

Neighbouring Sweden has also thrown some things into the mix, with perhaps the most popular variety, the Kanelsnegl, literallycinnamon snail” basically just an evolution of the less tasty and certainly less fattening Swedish Kanelbulle or “cinnamon bun”.

Here’s a quick cheat sheet on the various tasty treats Denmark’s many bakeries and cafés have on on offer and how to recognise them. 

The top five: 

Bakeries adapt their kanelsnegl in many different ways. Photo: Maria Nielsen/Visit Denmark

Kanelsnegl

The cinnamon snail has come a long way from its soft, moist, doughy Swedish cousin, with a crispy, buttery, flaky pastry that can be almost biscuit-like. The cinnamon should be almost welded to the surface with melted sugar, and it’s normally topped off with a little dollop of icing. 

The Kanelsnegl has spawned countless luxurious variations, such as the Høj Snegl, or high snail, which is a taller version with a less biscuity pastry, which is filled with remonce, the creamy Danish cake filling made from creaming butter, sugar, and sometimes spices or marzipan together. 

Bakeries will often come up with their own new variants, such as a croissant snegl, a romsnegl (with a rum-flavoured remonce) or a Brunsvigersnegl, that mixes the concept with that of the dark sugary syrup of a Brunsviger cake,

On Wednesdays, most bakers will make an onsdagssnegl, a “Wednesday snail“, which is a jumbo version with a special twist, often with a softer dough and cream in the middle. 

Spandauer filled with raspberry jam. Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

Spandauer

Competing with the kanelsnegl for the top spot in the hierarchy of Danish wienerbrød is the spandauer, named after a famous Berlin prison which it supposedly resembles. 

Flaky dough, laminated with butter like a croissant, is shaped to form a well into which custard crème or jam is poured, with sliced and lightly broken-up nuts often sprinkled on top.

Tebirkes (top half) and Frøsnapper (bottom half) ready for delivery. Photo: Maria Nielsen/Visit Denmark

Tebirkes 

This poppy-seed foldover is definitely in the top five list. It’s traditionally stuffed with remonce and is somewhat less sweet than the kanelsnegl, (although it arguably makes up for this in fat).

Sometimes in Denmark you’ll see a plain birkes, which is less sweet and don’t have the remoulade filling and which you sweeten by slathering with your own jam. You can also find a grovbirkes, which is a savoury poppyseed roll which can be eaten with cheese.

According to St Peders Bageri, Copenhagen’s oldest bakery, a tebirkes should be “crisp – and not dry – and at the same time have a centre that is moist and soggy”. 

So now you know. 

Photo: St Peters Bageri

Kardemommesnurrer

These plaited buns or twists are made by weaving a soft dough around a delicious cardamom remonce before baking. They are closer to a Swedish cardamom bun, and are delicious, with a buttery, earthy aroma. You can also get a cinnamon version. 

Frøsnappere

A Frøsnappere or “seed snapper” is buttery puff pastry that’s been smeared in a sticky remonce and poppy seeds and then twisted around itself and baked to make a sort of crunchy, sweet wand. They are also sometimes made in savoury versions with cream cheese and sesame seeds. 

The second division: 

Photo: Udo Schröter/Wikimedia Commons

Kanelgifler 

To make Kanelgifler, the cinnamon remonce is rolled into pastry in a similar way as for a cinnamon roll, but the ensuing bun is baked pastry side down.

 

Photo: Asger Ladefoged/Ritzau Scanpix
 

Hindbærsnitter

These raspberry slices are made from a sweetened shortcrust pastry layered with raspberry jam, topped with icing and sprinkles, and then cut into bars. 

Rabarbersnitter

A seasonal variant on Hindbærsnitter made with a tart rhubarb filling, often lent some sweetness by a smear of remonce and then sprinkled with sliced almonds.

Rabarbarhorn

An alternative rhubarb-based wienerbrød is the rabarbarhorn, a flaky pastry wrapped around marzipan remonce and rhubarb.  You can also find a raspberry version, a hindbærhorn, shaped like a French croissant, or even an æblehorn, an apple version, for that matter. 

Photo: Erik Jepsen/NF/Ritzau Scanpix

Æbletærte

Most bakeries will offer some sort of Æbletærte or “apple tart”, either as a wienerbrød or cut into slices. 

Member comments

  1. I have not lived in Denmark for some time, but I am pretty sure that no Danish baker would put remoulade in a tebirkes. It is likely a spell check error, and the author meant to write remonce.

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FAMILY

‘Latte-far’? Taking a month off work on Danish parental leave

The Local Denmark editor Michael Barrett took four weeks off his regular job to look after his youngest child during the month leading up to her first birthday.

'Latte-far'? Taking a month off work on Danish parental leave

I sat sipping an Americano outside what you might describe as a ‘gourmet bakery’ in my local Danish town as my little daughter, age 11-and-a-half months, sat opposite me in one of the café’s wooden child seats, which I’d carried outside while waiting for the coffee.

She drank one of the child-friendly fruit smoothies (organic) that you can get in supermarkets for around 7 kroner, babbling away de-de-de-de as she usually does when she sees something new. The café staff couldn’t tell her off for consuming food not purchased on the premises, by the way, because I was also sharing my croissant with her.

Being on parental leave in the twelfth month since birth feels like a cushy job compared to the tough early stages when she slept restlessly at night, had mild colic when awake and was tricky to put down for a nap.

Those fragile days – and the rest of the first eleven months of her life – were all spent in the near-constant company of her mother, who has gone back to work after almost a year off, every last day of her parental and maternity leave now used up.

Danish laws ensure parents can take 48 weeks of leave after their child is born, but because the rules “earmark” a certain amount of parental leave to each parent, the father or co-mother will often take on some of the baby’s primary care in the first year.

A law which was introduced in 2022 guarantees each parent 11 weeks of “earmarked” or non-transferable leave with their newborn child. For fathers and co-mothers, this is 9 weeks more than the earmarked leave under earlier rules (there are also different rules for varying personal circumstances, such as single parents or students).

READ ALSO:

I don’t know whether we’d have chosen to do things this way if we’d had the option of just giving all the parental leave to Mum. Critics of the added parental leave earmarking say it takes choice away from families. Supporters say it promotes equality and more involvement from fathers.

From a personal perspective, we were in a good position because our daughter was ready to switch – she was eating solids and sleeping well enough for me to take over relatively smoothly from her mum. It might not be like this for everyone.

So what did I do during this month ‘off’ work? Did it really transform me into an artisan coffee-sipping man of leisure? Did it change anything about me at all and more importantly, did it benefit the little one?

In Sweden, the term lattepappa is used to describe certain types of dad on parental leave.

While this can be an expression used to describe men who spend their parental leave walking about town with their stroller and a cup of coffee, there can be further connotations.

In an article from 2005, around the time the phenomenon first appeared, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet’s Terri Herrera Eriksson, wrote “A lattepappa is not a term for a parent who prefers a certain kind of coffee, but a term to describe a whole lifestyle. He is often on parental leave for a long time, but spends a good portion of that time developing his style and himself.”

Aware that parental leave provisions in Denmark are among the world’s best, giving me a paid-up month off my regular job with The Local, I did see some potential for this kind of thing at the beginning of the month. I set my sights on the interval during the middle of the day when the baby takes her nap.

I could start writing some fiction again, I thought, a pre-children hobby that has long since fallen by the wayside.

READ ALSO: What parental benefits are you entitled to as a freelancer in Denmark?

Reality hit and these lofty ambitions weren’t fulfilled but I did discover that I could keep up my training for an upcoming half-marathon by taking my daughter out in the baby jogger just ahead of nap time. As soon as the three-wheeler started swaying gently, she’d drift off and usually sleep for at least an hour, by which time I had finished running.

This had a couple of obvious benefits: it gave her a stable nap routine while freeing up time to spend with the rest of the family in the mornings or evenings.

My newfound efficiency was also at the back of my mind when, after finishing a shop at a local Føtex supermarket, I found myself drawn into the adjoining Starbucks where I bought a coffee and handed one of the smoothies I’d just bought to my daughter. She looked around the template Starbucks interior as if it had all the mesmerising wonder of the Chocolate Room from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder version).

The following day I upped my game by heading to the café described at the start of this article, but these were in fact the only two occasions I visited a café during my month’s leave (and I had black coffee for the record, not latte).

The rest of the time was spent washing clothes, emptying the dishwasher, picking up our older child from kindergarten and other stuff that is both unsurprising and uninteresting to read about.

Danish doesn’t really have a term that mirrors Sweden’s lattepappa but most Danes would probably recognise it, given the comparable parental leave provisions the two countries have. In the Danish language it would be the more mundane-sounding lattefar or “latte-father”.

This non-existent word makes some sense to me because it feels like the last month has revolved around practical jobs and everyday tasks but has also given me time to do things I enjoy (with a bit of creativity) and, best of all, form a closer bond with my daughter, who makes me laugh and smile constantly.

If the above counts as a latte-dad “developing his style and himself”, we can probably say the Danish parental leave rules worked well in my personal case.

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