Think Denmark, think Danish pastries. Buttery, flaky, light-as-air, a Danish is a multilayered, laminated sweet pastry in the viennoiserie tradition. Typically pigeonholed into a small slot across the world, a Danish pastry seems synonymous with the custard-filled spandauer—a staple at breakfast buffets across the world. But a recent trip to Copenhagen revealed that there’s more: kanelsnegle (cinnamon snail), kanelstang (cinnamon stick), tebirkes (pastry with poppy seeds), brunsviger (topped with caramelised brown sugar), and hindbærsnitte (raspberry slice) are among some of the Danish pastry varieties available.
Food historian Nina Bauer says the Danish pastry is called “wienerbrod” in Danish, literally “Viennese bread”, because the inspiration and baking techniques came from Viennese bakers. Local lore suggests the Danish pastry was born amid a strike among bakery workers in Denmark in 1850.
The strike led bakery owners to hire foreign bakers, including those from Austria, who brought their own baking techniques. The end of the strike led Danish bakers to adopt Austrian recipes, creating the famous Danish pastry.
But Bauer says the hiring of foreign bakers started long before 1850. “The history of the Danish goes back to the late 18th century when many bakers came from Austria and Germany. The Danish learned the art of laminating dough, a technique that made it light and airy. This inspired many Danish bakers to travel to Austria to study the art of Viennese baking,” she says.
NC Albeck, a baker at the Danish court, is said to have travelled to Austria around 1840 to learn the secrets of Viennese baking. On his return, he used the Austrian yeast-leavened puff-pastry dough to create wienerbrod horn, or Viennese bread horns.
Many other bakers followed, combining varied techniques with different kinds of fillings, including nuts, raisins, spices, jam, apple, marzipan, and custard.
The recipe for a true-blue Danish only has a few ingredients—a yeast-leavened dough of flour, milk, eggs, and sugar—but the process is long. The dough is rolled out thinly, covered with butter of rullemargarine (a baker’s margarine), and then folded and rolled several times, ultimately creating 27 layers.
“The 27 layers are one of the hallmarks of true Danish pastry. The signature folds create a pastry that is light and crispy on the outside, rich and buttery inside,” says Amalie Holm, at Hart Bakery, one of the most popular bakeries in Copenhagen.
