Who’s ready for another wonderful, wonderful Dane-ish pasty?
Today we have the tebirkes. Which, translated literally, means a ‘tea-poppy seed’. Outside of Copenhagen, it’s sometimes called a Københavnerbirkes, a ‘Copenhagen-poppy seed’.
Tebirkes
As you can see, it’s a fairly high, light puffy bread roll and, as the Danes say, it “sidder mellem to stole” – ‘sits between two chairs’. On the one hand, it isn’t a full-on-in-your-face sweet Danish pastry. But on the other, it’s not a plain old savoury roll. Great for when you want something a little sweet but are pretending to be healthy… Though I like to go the whole hog, slice it open and lather it with butter! 
Mmmm…lots of lovely Kærgården with my bread!
The tebirkes tastes very similar to the frøsnapper, savoury-looking but with a sticky sweet bottom. And, yes – by jingo dash – the tebirkes is made from the very same dough and ingredients. The frøsnapper is just shaped differently…
Frøsnapper – cousin of the tebirkes
Don’t like sweet things? Want a healthier option? Then you can always go for the no frills, non-sweet variant, the grovbirkes – grov meaning ‘rough’ or ‘coarse’.
But back to my favourite variety, the tebirkes…
TEBIRKES – The final verdict!
Sweetness: 3 out of 5
Messiness: 4 out of 5,
Current price: approx. Dkr 13 ($2.30 or £1.47)
Join me next time for more wonderful, wonderful Great Dane-ish pastries!
Diane 