Brunsviger

I think Sarah gave me these plates in ‘06? Somewhere around then. STILL HAVE THEM!

This brunsviger is too light. In Denmark, they tend to use dark muscovado sugar for this, and I had only light brown sugar. Just be aware of that, even if you don’t really care about authenticity. The difference between brown and muscovado sugar really comes down to how they’re processed. Brown is white sugar that’s had molasses sprayed back onto it. I think Domino still does it the old (muscovado) way, but otherwise all American brown sugars are really white sugar. They’ll be labelled otherwise if they aren’t. Muscovado sugar is the OG brown sugar, that has molasses stripped from it in stages, and when it’s the right molasses content, the sugar goes off for the rest of its process before hitting the store. I really should do a sugar origin story one day.

Of all the Danish pastries I’ve tried, this is my favorite. I came to this pastry rather late in life, to my great regret. This is because my favorite Dane in the entire world is from a different part of Denmark, and because I never really took the time to explore Danish pastry properly until a few years ago. Probably because they weren’t in the beloved Danish baking book I’ve been using the last 20-ish years for various things.

The first time I tried this, I immediately knew that I would never make a breakfast roll again. Ever. It turned out to not be true, because I did make some once this year, but after that I realized my earlier decision to just not was the right call. Breakfast rolls are an awful lot of work to not be as good as this. This is basically caramel bread, which is in effect a coffee cake. It’s godly. Really. You feel divinity flowing through you when you eat this stuff! I no longer make other coffee cakes, either.

Brunsviger, which literally translates into the nonsensical “treacherously brown,” is believed to be named after the German city Braunchweig, because the top is very brown. As you can see. It comes from Fyn (Funen in English), the island in the center of Danmark (the correct spelling of Denmark, if you didn’t know), which is between Zealand and mainland Denmark. Here’s a map, so you can see where I mean:

Yep, this is a screen shot from Google Maps. It seemed most efficient. That wee island on the other side of Sweden is also part of Denmark, and is an island called Bornholm, where my friend comes from. It’s the westernmost part of Denmark, and has been renowned in recent years for its cuisine. Zealand is the island Copenhagen is on, and the bit jutting out from Germany is the mainland portion of Denmark. Denmark has a lot of castles, which I hope one day to visit.

Author Hans Christian Andersen is from Odense (shown on map), ditto American Revolutionary War commander Christian Febiger (if y’all don’t know about him, he is important in our national history) from Fyn also, except the city Faaborg (not shown on map).

The first known advertisement for brunsviger happens in 1830, so 27 years before yeast is seen in a microscope and extracted for commercial production. Some of y’all may remember that from the sourdough origin story, while others may not have read that far back in the blog, so I figured it bore repeating. Anyway, I am used to making this with commercial yeast, whether powdered or fresh. But since this cake has existed before that was possible, it clearly has its roots in sourdough. Yay for sourdough! This is also a really soft dough that requires no kneading, so I was able to have Ross get the stand mixer out for me so I could make it without hurting my wrists. Extra win!

For months, I have been nagging poor Sabrina to send me a Danish wheat starter, because I didn’t feel comfortable using one from anywhere else for this. Y’all just use the starter you have; you don’t need anything special to do it. Every time she’d send me cultures that didn’t have this, I’d be sad (and probably annoying enquiring about it all the time), but one day? BAM! Big ol’ package of wet starter! I didn’t even have to activate it! This right here is the only reason I wanted that starter, and happily we now have one!

I immediately fed it, with building it up in mind. Like this.

Look at all that glory. I thought it had peaked when it got to here…

It had not. Bake time!

Because I was wrong and it spilled, but because CT told me she saw it spilling well before I was ready to make it, I made the dough right then. I was glad he had taken the mixer out for me to use when I was ready!

Here’s what you’ll need

For the cake/bread:

150g sourdough starter (I’m sorry I didn’t get volume conversion; I was really more focused on not making a bigger mess while I got the starter into the bowl)

152g milk (5/8 cup or 149mL) milk

2 eggs

6 tablespoons melted butter

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

sometimes I add a dash or two of cardamom, but didn’t this time

415g all-purpose flour (2.86 US cups)

For the caramel:

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

3/4 cup brown sugar

Here’s what you’ll do

Put everything but the flour in your bowl, then mix it up either with the paddle or dough hook for your mixer (if you pick paddle, you’ll need the hook later). Do this with your whisk, spatula, or spoon if by hand. Add in the flour (dough hook), and mix it until it’s soft, smooth-ish, elastic, and slightly sticky. It’ll look like this:

I let this rise 2 hours, saw it needed 4, and put it in the fridge until morning. So do either overnight in fridge or do 4 hours. Your call. This does not have to double in volume. Does not. Normally, you only rise this for a half hour (with commercial yeast), because even though it’s bread dough, it’s really cake dough. So you don’t need a spectacular rise, and could do as little as 1 hour with the sourdough version. I prefer this cake slightly breadier than those rise times allow, no matter the yeast source, so I always rise it longer than you’re meant to. I forgot, however, to take a picture of it once it was risen. Sorry, y’all. Little bit of #failblogger goin’ on over here!

Normally you do this in a 9x13” pan. I split mine in half, because I want to send half to my friend Anji, and I put her half in a disposable pie plate. Last time I sent her this, I had more appropriate disposable choices, but I’m not leaving the house for a better piece of aluminium. Then I gave her portion saran and a freezer bag before putting the rest in my 8x8” pan. As such:

Gentle tease your dough into your pan. Be nice to it. It worked hard to rise for you.

I can really never decide how I feel about this pan. I’ve been engaging in that internal debate for around 15 years now.

Let that rise again. I think this did 4 hours, because I forgot about it. In fact, I forgot about it until CT suddenly remembered in the middle of dinner that we were making this, and she was having no part of her dessert plans destroyed by my desire to eat my delivery Panera in peace. Standard rise time with commercial is 20 minutes, so as few as 40 is fine with sourdough.

After that, melt your butter.

I really don’t care what anyone says. There is not, has never been, nor ever will be a substitute for butter. Because butter. I love butter. Sometimes I eat it plain. CT does this too sometimes, and Ross gives me accusatory looks as though to imply I taught this to her. I did not, but she comes by it honestly nonetheless.

Also? This picture looks kind of like a reverse egg, due to the reflection of the overhead light in the butter.

After that, make your caramel. You do this by whisking the brown sugar into the butter. Apologies for the mess. I really was eating dinner when she rightly asserted that if we didn’t get on top of this omgritenow, I would push it off until the next day and she wouldn’t get to eat any for dessert or for breakfast with her egg.

At this point, you need to spread your fingers out and use them to make deep divots in the dough. Try not to deflate the entire thing, but yes lots of divots. You want to get very close to the bottom, but don’t hit or punch through it. These divots are meant to become wells of caramel. Also, turn your oven onto 400F/200C/GM6. That detail is the only reason I didn’t stick the instructions in a caption of the picture below. But that’s CT happily clawing divots into the dough.

Deep, but don’t punch through or hit the bottom.

Pour that caramel on. Actually? Don’t, unless you’re using the 9x13 I said you should above. My wrist was killing me, so I forgot that I made all the caramel instead of half before pouring it on. What I learned are the following:

1. Brunsviger always needed more caramel, and no one ever knew. I was shocked by this.

2. It didn’t need that much more. 1.25-1.5x the recommended caramel would be perfect. If it gets doubled, you will need to really be a sweets kind of guy to be able to handle the richness and sweetness for more than a couple of bites. CT is one such guy, so this too-much-caramel business was an easy sell in my house. She’s been hoovering this cake. She told me, “it’s better than bread, and it’s better than cake, and it’s better than anything other than brownies. Because you know, mama, nothing is better than brownies. But this is almost as good as brownies.” I didn’t even know she felt that way about brownies. Glad she takes her job seriously enough to give detailed reviews of everything I’m making for work!

3. If you use “that much more,” it’s best if you let it sit a day or two before eating. Then you don’t have to be mad about sweets to eat more than a couple of bites, and can instead eat your whole piece. I took one for the team here and tested this out for y’all. ;)

Bake it for 25-30 minutes. If you forgot the timer, as I may have, you will smell it when it’s nearly done. It’ll smell like bread and candy intertwined. Once it’s done (tester will come out clean, also, per normal cakes), put it on a rack. Don’t touch it. It’s in the lava stage right now, and you’re going to get hurt if you touch it or try to eat it. Trust that I have tested how painful it would be for you, and learn from my mistakes.

I took a video of the lava stage, because it comes out with the caramel still actively boiling, but Squarespace appears to be only okay with videos that have URLs attached to them. I had no URL to offer, so be aware that those bubbles are happening in the moment as the cake is still boiling.

You really do want to let it cool for a while. It’s still slightly warm in this picture, but is ready to eat. It’s best when it’s still a bit warm, but still delicious room temp. Also excellent with coffee. Note that if you use crazy amounts of caramel, you’ll have a mess underneath, because some of the butter will separate and also some of the caramel will get down there. You may not be able to get it out of the pan in once piece if you didn’t use a silpat or parchment. I still had to cut around the cake to separate the caramel stuck to the wall of the pan from the caramel stuck to the cake, and it was still hard to get out of the pan. Normally I serve it in the pan, and I will likely go back to that.

Time to get your nom-nom-nomivore on!