Popular Poppy Seed Pastries
Tebirkes, like spandauer, is a type of Danish pastry that is very popular in Denmark. And as much as we love both spandauer and kanelsnegle, our favorite pastry is definitely tebirkes. We have childhood memories of waking up to find that our parents had been to the local baker and picked up wienerbrød (Vienna bread, which is funnily enough what Danes call Danish pastries) for breakfast, and fighting with our siblings over the tebirkes.
Why They’re The Best
It’s hard to describe why this pastry is so good, but it just is! The dough is buttery and flaky, with a filling made of marzipan and butter, and a layer of poppy seeds on top. The pastry has an amazing texture and mild flavor of marzipan and poppy, which, when combined with the buttery pastry is just so delicious. These are best served with a hot cup of coffee in the morning, but you can also have them as an afternoon snack or even dessert.
Danish Pastry Dough
This recipe uses laminated and yeasted dough, the same as we use in many of our Danish pastry recipes. We have two versions of the dough – a more complex one and an easier one. What’s the difference? Well, the easier version uses less butter and more flour, making the pastry easier to work with, and it also rests and rises for less time.
This is because more butter inhibits the yeast’s growth, so it simply takes longer for the pastry dough to proof. Despite taking longer and being more complex, the more challenging dough will give a more buttery and flaky result closer to what you might get from a bakery. It’s really up to you which one you choose to use!
Ingredients
There are a few things to look out for when it comes to the ingredients for this recipe, particularly the butter. The most challenging part of making Danish pastry dough is ensuring that the butter doesn’t leak out when the pastries are baked. This is what leads to huge gaps in the pastry and a fried bottom, because all the butter has run out and the pastry has fried in a puddle of butter on the baking sheet.
Choosing your butter wisely and preparing it properly for the lamination process is key! We would recommend using a European butter with a higher fat percentage. European butter contains less water, and will be easier to work with and more elastic than American butter. This helps with rolling the dough out without it causing you problems, like breaking apart in the dough.
Preparing the Butter
Importantly, you should make sure that your butter is not too cold when you enclose it in the dough. This could cause leakage problems later on, because when you roll it out, the butter may break up and you won’t have smooth sheets of butter between your layers of dough. So, carefully follow the butter folding step on our pastry dough recipes to help with this! It will make the butter more elastic and easier to roll out without breaking into chunks.
Shaping Tebirkes
The only difference between this recipe and spandauer or kanelsnegle is the assembly, which is a bit more complicated. Basically, you have to make sure that you seal the pastries extremely well. Otherwise, they will fall over in the oven! And, again, as we always try to emphasize in every Danish pastry recipe – the pastries need to proof for a while, so be patient, because the final result will make it all worth it! If you make our recipe, be sure to leave a comment and a rating below! And tag us on Instagram if you post a photo!
Watch Our Video!
Check out our full tutorial on Youtube for a visual guide to this recipe!
Tebirkes (Danish Pastry with Poppy Seeds)
Ingredients
PASTRY DOUGH
- 1 portion wienerbrødsdej *or you can use the easier recipe below! You only need one portion, so choose one to use!!
- OR 1 portion "easier" wienerbrødsdej (danish pastry dough)
MARZIPAN FILLING (REMONCE)
- 100 grams marzipan (our recipe makes 250 grams, so you can adjust accordingly!)
- 50 grams softened butter
- 50 grams sugar
TOPPING
- 1 egg for egg wash
- Poppy seeds
Instructions
- The night before baking, begin preparing the pastry dough by following the steps in our wienerbrødsdej recipe. Or, you can make the dough the same day, and use our easier version! You can also prepare homemade marzipan ahead of time.
- The next day or after the dough is done rising, follow the lamination instructions in the danish pastry dough recipe.
- While the dough is resting between folds, mix together the ingredients for the marzipan filling. Mix really well, until you have a smooth paste.
- Once you've completed the final lamination according to the danish pastry dough recipe and the dough has rested, begin rolling out your dough. When it's reached about 16" in length, cut it in half and work with one half at a time, putting the second half back in the fridge.
- Roll out your dough into a flat rectangle that is pretty thin – about 1/8 inch in thickness. One half of the dough will make six pastries, for twelve total.
- Once your dough is in a rough rectangle shape, trim the edges. Your rectangle should measure at least 14" in length, and about 9-9.5" in width.
- Add marzipan paste to the center third of your dough, along the length of the dough – remember that you will just spread half of the paste on this first half of the dough.
- Fold the left third of the dough about halfway across the filling – make sure you are folding the long edge over.
- Add a little bit of water to the top of the dough you just folded over, to help the pastry stick together.
- Fold the right third over the left third, overlapping by about an inch.
- Press down firmly where the dough overlaps to seal.
- Cut into six equal pieces. We don't measure this part but just make marks on the dough halfway down, then divide the two halves into thirds to make equal sized pastries. If you prefer to measure, definitely do that!
- Place on a prepared baking sheet with parchment paper, seam side down. Cover and start proofing.
- Shape the next six pastries using the other half of the dough and the remaining half of the marzipan paste. Place these on a second baking baking sheet with parchment paper, and cover with either plastic wrap or a dish towel.
- Now leave your shaped pastries to rise for at least 2 hours, perhaps longer.
- Look at the difference between the previous picture and the picture below! This is a very important step, because under-proofing these means major butter leakage (we are speaking from experience!). You'll know the pastries are ready when they feel super light and airy (almost wobbly when you touch them) and have doubled in size. Another test is to poke the dough, and if it leaves an impression and doesn't spring back immediately, it should be ready.
- Towards the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 C).
- Once your pastries have fully risen, egg wash the tops.
- Add poppy seeds in an even and thick layer on top of the egg washed pastries.
- Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. You can either bake both baking sheets at the same time if you adjust the oven racks, or bake one sheet at a time on the center rack. We prefer to bake these one at a time to control the temperature in the oven a little bit better, and because the second half of the pastries likely will need 15 or so extra minutes of proofing anyway.
- After the pastries are done, transfer to a cooling rack. Bake the second sheet and let those pastries cool on a cooling rack as well. Enjoy!
Excellent results! I made my Tebirkes on the smaller side, and the recipe produced 16 Tebirkes. This was the first recipe where I used the lamination process. I thought it would be more difficult, technically it was not, but it does take many hours (up to a day if refrigerated overnight ). Worth it! These Tebirkes are delicious and remind me of my time living in Denmark.
We’re so happy to hear that they turned out well! It seems difficult to make homemade Danish pastry, but it’s really not too hard if you follow the steps carefully and take your time, which it sounds like you did. Thank you so much for using our recipe and leaving a rating and a review! We really appreciate it 🙂
what butter ore margarine do you use ..???…
I live in the UK grew up in Denmark and gosh I’m dying to try making this bad boys
We always use European butter to make wienerbrød! This means it should have a butter fat percentage between 82 and 85%. You can probably look up online what brands your grocery store might have in stock. We have used Plugra European-style butter and another popular one is President – I think you can also use Lurpak which is a Danish brand. Hope that helps!
Hi 🙂
Can you help: most of the filling run out during the baking process. Was it just too much filling or is there a trick to keep it “in”? Thank you 🙂
Hi! Thanks for your comment 🙂 We usually have a bit of filling leak out, it’s kind of inevitable, but it shouldn’t all be leaking out! Most likely they were underproofed and needed more time to rise before baking. The butter in the filling may also have gotten too warm, so just make sure it’s softened but not melted before you mix it, and also let the tebirkes rise at room temperature, not at any warmer temperature. I also know that in some bakeries they put the tebirkes close together on the baking sheet, so maybe you can try that! Hope this helps. And thank you for using our recipe!
Hi,
My favourite Danish pastry !
My poppy seeds always darken on the surface during baking , they aren’t burnt but then don’t retain the blue / grey colour whereas the ones I see in pictures do. I bake for 5 mins @ 220C and 15mins @ 200C. Any comments / ideas on why they do this please ?
Hi! We bake ours at a lower temperature, at 190C for about 15 minutes total (on a convection/fan setting); Baking them at a higher temperature is likely the the reason they are getting darker than that blue/grey color!
Absolutely love them turn out perfect, I definitely will do them again, thanks too your
Drawing how to do them,
GREAT THANKS
WW
Yay, so happy to hear it! Thanks for leaving a comment and rating 🙂
I love this recipe! I first tried these pastries in Amsterdam and fell in love. I wanted to try to make them, but the process seems long and I was nervous. I’ve never made pastry dough before. However, I encourage anyone to make these! As long as you have time set aside (a long afternoon at home), you should be fine. They turned out amazing! They taste like a pastry I would buy at a bakery. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe and the video!
Thank you for this lovely comment, we’re so happy they turned out well! Definitely a long and somewhat stressful process, but hopefully worth it in the end 🙂