Danish Coffee Cake
“Brunsviger” has no direct English translation, but this cake can best be described as a Danish coffee cake. It consists of a soft yeast dough topped with a brown sugar and butter caramel. The cake tastes a bit like a deconstructed cinnamon roll, but without the cinnamon! Oh, and fun fact – this cake comes from the Danish island of Fyn, or Funen, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen.
Kagemand: A Version of a Birthday Cake!
You can make brunsviger as a simple coffee cake, but many people also use them as a base for a Danish birthday cake, called a kagemand (cake man) or kagekone (cake woman). A kagemand/kagekone is shaped like a person, hence the name. It’s usually topped with marzipan or icing, and decorated with Danish sweets (including lots of licorice!) and sprinkles. It’s a really fun project for a birthday, so we would suggest giving it a try!
Tips & Tricks
The recipe for brunsviger is incredibly easy to follow! The dough is the same as our recipe for kanelsnegle, and the topping just requires a little patience to allow the sugar and butter to melt together. Brunsviger are actually really fun to make, because you get to poke holes in them! Weirdly, the process is quite similar to making focaccia, but the end result is definitely different taste-wise. Try out the recipe and let us know what you think! If you make our recipe, be sure to leave a comment and a rating below, or tag us on Instagram if you post a photo!
Brunsviger (Danish Coffee Cake)
Ingredients
DOUGH
- 150 ml (2/3 cup) milk
- 2 tsp instant yeast (2.25 tsp active-dry yeast, 17.5g fresh yeast)
- 1 large egg (room temperature)
- 1 egg yolk (room temperature)
- 50 grams (1/4 cup) sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 375 grams (3 cups) all-purpose flour
- 57 grams (4 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
TOPPING
- 100 grams (7 tbsp) unsalted butter *for even more sticky topping goodness, you can use 150 grams each of the butter and the brown sugar!
- 100 grams (1/2 cup packed) brown sugar
Instructions
- Heat up the milk until it is "fingervarm" (finger warm), meaning it should feel warm to the touch but not hot. Add the yeast and stir to dissolve. Let it rest 5-10 minutes until it begins to bloom and froth a little bit.
- Meanwhile, combine the egg, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt in a large mixing bowl and mix well.
- Once the yeast has bloomed, add the yeast mixture to the egg mixture and whisk together.
- Slowly add the flour. Once the dough starts to come together, you can begin kneading.
- Add the unsalted butter and knead for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add more flour if the dough is sticking to your hands or the table.
- Cover the dough and let it rise for about an hour at room temperature.
- Butter a baking tray. Once the dough has doubled in size, you can either roll it out or just stretch it with your hands to fit the tray.
- Poke holes in it with your fingers. Let this rise another 30-45 mins, and preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (200 C).
- In the meantime, make your topping. Combine the brown sugar and unsalted butter in a saucepan and place it over a low heat. You want the sugar to dissolve and the butter to melt, but if you rush it at a higher heat, they will separate. If that happens, add a little bit of hot water and stir to try to save the mixture. Let your mixture cool a little bit (but not harden or congeal!).
- Once the dough has risen again, add the (slightly cooled) topping, and use your fingers to poke more holes. You can also make the holes first and then pour the topping over that! You want to push pretty far down, almost to the bottom of the baking tray.
- Bake the brunsviger for 18-20 minutes, or until the top of the dough looks nice and golden brown. If you bake in a convection oven and use a glass pan, you may want to check the doneness as early as 15 minutes! Enjoy!
We just made this with vegan ingredients, and it tastes soooo good! The only issue we had was that the vegan butter immediately separated when making the topping. Luckily, the hot water trick worked and it all combined!
Yay so glad to hear it!! And great to know that vegan substitutions also worked out!
Can I suggest an edit? I think Step 7 should be moved to during the second rising period. It’s very difficult to keep the caramel mixture hot for an hour and 45 minutes while the dough rises. I should have waited to make that until it was closer to the time to use it. Thank you!
Hi Emily! Thank you so much – you are totally correct! We must have screwed that up somehow when we originally wrote the recipe. So sorry about that, that definitely would have made it impossible to keep the mixture warm, but thank you for your comment so we can fix it in the recipe. Best wishes!
I would like to turn it into a festive kagekone for my daughter’s 20 birthday. What do you suggest I do? Thanks!
Hi! I have actually made a kagemand using this recipe before and it worked really well 😊 What I did was I divided the dough between two pans, one small round cake pan and then a rectangular pan as well. After baking, I used the round brunsviger as the head and trimmed the rectangular one into the torso, arms, and legs. Then you decorate with candy, I like to use a mixture of licorice, chocolate (like M&Ms) and gummy candy (like gummy bears or worms). You can use a simple icing (powdered sugar and water) to help the candy stick to the brunsviger. I hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks, that’s very helpful. I’ll follow your advice, and I’m sure my daughter would love it!
I am danish and trying to learn more about my culture, starting with food. This is by far my favorite recipe, and everyone I have made it for has loved it. If you are looking at the comments to consider whether or not you should bake this, DO IT! It may look long and daunting, but it is a very easy recipe, with a very delicious outcome
Ahh thank you, what a sweet comment! So happy that it turned out great and that you keep coming back to it, that’s our favorite feedback to hear 🙂
What size baking dish did you use? It looks like a 9×13 baking dish. I will be making this soon for a family event. Thank you
Doug
Hi! I just saw your other comment so I’m sure you figured this out but just to answer your question for anyone else browsing on here in the future – we used a 9×13 inch dish, yes! You could use smaller or larger, it will just change the thickness of the cake and it could need more/less time in the oven as a result. We are currently going through all our recipes and adding details like this, so apologies that it wasn’t already in the recipe!
Made a test batch of the Brunsviger today. Fantastic! The cake/bread perfect! Question on the brown sugar and butter, do you just let the mixture melt together or whisk it? My sauce came out grainy, but very tasty. I use an 9×13 baking dish and the sauce was enough to cover the entire Brunsviger.
Thank you
Amazing to hear 🙂 We usually melt them together over a low heat, we do stir it but not a lot. It’s hard to get it perfectly smooth! Thanks for your comment, really glad it turned out well.