The delicious doughy sweet treat of Denmark
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. 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
. Read more on livemint.com
