Brunsviger

Brunsviger is a yeasted cake with a topping of brown sugar and butter, and it is a well-loved favourite on the Danish island of Funen. The surface has hollows pressed in with the fingers, and the sweet topping pools in them. When it is cut, each bite brings together the soft, airy dough and the moist brown layer.

Topping that pools in the hollows

In one example method, yeast is dissolved in milk, and flour, butter and other ingredients are mixed in to make a dough. After the dough is spread in a tin and left to rise, hollows are made with the fingers or a spoon, and a warmed mixture of butter and brown sugar is spread over the surface before baking. The melted sugar and butter spread across the surface and pool in the hollows of the dough.

On Funen, it also appears at gatherings such as birthdays and anniversaries. In Odense, the “brunsvigermand,” a brunsviger shaped like a person and decorated with sweets, became popular for children’s birthdays from the 1960s onward. Besides cutting a large tray of the cake and sharing it, people can also enjoy it shaped into a figure and set out at a celebration.

Brunsviger can also be eaten by splitting a small bread roll and putting brunsviger inside. Local history material from Odense introduces this under the name “runner me brunner,” and says it began to be sold at bakeries on the island around 2000. It is one example, distinctive to Funen, of putting a sweet cake inside bread.

A 19th-century name and today’s form

According to a Danish encyclopedia, the Odense baker Christensen used the name “brunsviger” in an advertisement before Christmas in 1830. A cookbook from 1859 describes a method of adding butter and lemon oil to the dough and topping it with sugar, cardamom and chopped almonds. In this example, the dough is left to rise and shaped into a flat loaf before baking.

Although the name is the same, the brown sugar and butter topping commonly seen today cannot simply be assumed for the 19th-century cake. The encyclopedia explains that in later cookbooks the name changed from “brunsviger bread” to “brunsviger cake,” and that changes in fillings and toppings can also be seen in the 20th century.

While the name is explained by linking it to Braunschweig in Germany, there are differing views on the origin of the cake itself. The origin of the cake, and how it spread until it became as popular on Funen as it is today, cannot be explained by a single place name alone.

Glossary