The delicious doughy sweet treat of Denmark
Fastelavnsboller, a beloved Danish pastry, is more than just a sweet treat; it's a symbol of celebration before Lent
Denmark has a cake for every season – and reason – but no baked delight is awaited with as much anticipation as the indulgent Danish pastry made for Fastelavn.
The fastelavnsboller, a doughy bun with a sweet filing, is the taste of Fastelavn, a Danish holiday that, like Mardi Gras, has close ties to the Christian religious observance of Lent.
Lent, a six-week period of fasting, begins in mid-February and continues for 40 days till the celebration of Easter in April. But before the fasting comes the feasting. In Denmark, Fastelavn (pronounced fest-e-laun), is the name of the festival as well as a ritual-based feast to prepare for this period of abstinence.
Copenhagen-based food historian Nina Bauer says Fastelavn is the Danish version of Shrovetide where one would celebrate and eat well before the 40 days of Lent. “The word ‘fastelavn’ can roughly be translated into ‘fasting night’ and meant the last night before the fasting would begin," she says.
“In other words, Fastelavn was the time to eat all the things you couldn't during Lent, like meat, sugar, and dairy. During the celebration, people would dress up and go visit their neighbours and ‘threaten’ them with trouble unless given fastelavnsboller (Shrovetide bun). There’s even a song on this tradition," Bauer says.
Fastelavnsboller embodies a spirit of celebration and indulgence. Historically, it was a bread or a bun made with fine wheat flour, sweetened with sugar or honey, and flavoured with rosewater, raisins, succade, or spices like cardamom and cinnamon. Back then, it served as a sweet treat for any kind of celebration. It was only in the early 19th century that the name "fastelavnsbolle" first appeared as a name for the bun eaten at Fastelavn, informs Bauer.
“What we in Denmark now call an old-fashioned fastelavnsbolle, a sweet bun made with yeast dough with custard or jam baked into it, is from the first half of the 20th century," Bauer says.
Fastelavnsboller are typically of two kinds. The old-fashioned variety is made with flour, yeast and remonce (a thick paste made of butter and sugar, and called Lord Mayor Filling in English); the other kind is made with Vienna pastry and cream.
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Talia Richard-Carvajal, Head of Pastry at Hart Bageri, one of the most popular bakeries in Copenhagen, explains that Denmark has a bun for every single season, and every single holiday. “It's pretty much only a Danish holiday if it has a bun. Any type of dough can be made into fastelavnsboller; it can be filled with cream, jam, or covered in chocolate," she says.
However, it’s not that simple. A good fastelavnsboller needs to combine something white and sweet with a dark, bitter, or sour taste. All the tastes must be brought together and balanced by the texture of the bun.
Last year, Hart offered three varieties: croissant dough filled with vanilla mascarpone cream, black currant jam, and topped with whipped cream; an old-fashioned soft milk bun with remonce filling and covered with dark chocolate ganache; and an innovation that gave a milk bun a crunchy almond topping and whipped cream. The bakery made and sold 38,000 fastelavnsboller in five weeks, a record of sorts!
The fastelavnsboller craze has led bakeries in Copenhagen to compete and create new and innovative buns with no limit on shapes, decorations and flavours. The most popular fastelavnsboller, however, is made from laminated dough, like classic Danish pastry, and then filled with custard, flavoured whipped cream and jams, Bauer says.
With Lent no longer as widely practised among the Danish, Fastelavn has largely become a fun-focused children’s festival where they go trick-or-treating in fancy dress (like Halloween) and thrash a suspended barrel full of candy (like a piñata), before enjoying the sweet treat.
Guxi Maria Abel, a popular tour guide in Copenhagen, believes that with time many Danes have forgotten why certain customs or traditions were followed in the past.
“Looking ahead to 40 days of fasting, the people indulged for a week or two in sugary, fatty, and milky food. Over the years, we forgot why we ate this pastry, but the Fastelavn (and fastelavnsboller) tradition has stayed," she says. Abel believes that the French choux pastry has also inspired a change in the fastelavnsboller. “The dough is lighter and fluffier and it’s made with a variety of fillings: vanilla cream, whipped cream, chocolate mousse, raspberry cream, and many other varieties," she says.
Bauer feels that the seasonal availability of this much-loved pastry – in a world where everything is available 24X7 - contributes to its popularity. “Fastelavnsboller is only eaten around Fastelavn. The period that the bakeries offer this treat has extended to almost a month, buy it is still strictly seasonal food and is not sold round the year," she says.
The typically Danish sweet treat has also made its way to India. Chennai-based Brod, a Scandinavian-inspired bakery, offers the delicacy ahead of Lent. Subikka Ganesan, who started the bakery with a friend from Denmark, finds Danish cakes and pastries “more homely and comforting" and says cakes and pastries are integral to normal life in the Scandinavian nation.
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“They are also more seasonal and everyone looks forward to them. Like fastelavnboller, which are usually eaten before and during Fastelavn," she says, adding that all bakeries in Copenhagen start offering them after the new year sets in.
The classic buns are filled with almond paste and vanilla cream, and covered in chocolate. Reinventions feature berry vanilla cream in a croissant or bun form, along with other takes.
“There is an unsaid war among bakeries about whose fastelavnboller is the best. People queue up outside bakeries despite the weather to get their hands on these classic buns," Ganesan says.
Perhaps that’s the reason the seasonal indulgence is so popular. It gives the people of Denmark a slice of cheer amid the dark, dreary winter months.
In Copenhagen, enjoy this seasonal sweet treat at:
· Sankt Peders Bageri
· Hart Bageri
· Meyers Bageri
· Juno the Bakery
· Rondo
Teja Lele writes on travel and lifestyle.
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