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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Christiansfeld
Honey and spice cakes made from a dough that rests for months before baking, often coated in chocolate. They have been produced in Christiansfeld, the Moravian Church town, since 1783, with recipes kept secret.
Traditional sweet from Christiansfeld, Dinamarca do Sul
Also known as: Christiansfeld honningkager, honningkager, honningkage
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Christiansfelder honningkager — Christiansfeld, Denmark
Honningkager are honey and spice cakes: wheat flour, honey, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove and cardamom, with traditional leavening agents like potash. The classic dough begins with a pre-dough (fordej) of honey and flour that must mature for at least one month, preferably longer; during this time some starch converts and the cake becomes lighter. Only afterwards are the egg yolks and spices added.
Christiansfeld was founded in 1773 by the Moravian Church (Brødremenigheden), a Protestant community from the Herrnhut region in Saxony. The community organized the town’s trades, and among them was confectionery. Honningkager arrived in Denmark together with Christiansfeld at the end of the 18th century, and the town has produced them since 1783.
The town’s bakers became famous for their honningkager and the old recipes remain secret. The very technique of the matured dough is attributed to Christiansfeld’s early confectioners. To this day, many Danes associate the sweet with the town.
Christiansfeld, with its yellow brick houses and red roofs, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015, and the inscription was celebrated with a giant honningkage. The town centre has bakeries that sell cakes made locally.
Honningkager come in heart shapes or in slices, coated with chocolate or icing. Throughout Denmark, decorated honey hearts are hung on the Christmas tree.
Christiansfeld , Dinamarca do Sul
Honey cakes produced in the Moravian Church town since 1783.
Wheat flour, honey, sugar, spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove and cardamom), traditional leavening agents (potash, ammonium salt), egg yolks; chocolate or icing coating.
In slices, with coffee or tea; the decorated hearts are also hung on the Christmas tree.
Year-round in Christiansfeld; across Denmark, especially at Christmas.
Your questions
Because the town, founded by the Moravian Church in 1773, has produced these honey cakes since 1783 using old recipes kept secret.
The honey-and-flour dough rests for at least one month before the other ingredients are added, which makes the cake lighter.
Yes. The town was inscribed by UNESCO in 2015 as an example of a Moravian Church settlement.
Flavors of Denmark
Soft little dough balls fried in a cast-iron pan with round cavities and served with powdered sugar and jam. Despite the name, which means apple slices, they generally do not contain apple: they are the Danish Advent and Christmas sweet.
Nordic spirit flavored with caraway and, sometimes, dill, served chilled in small glasses at Danish celebratory lunches, alongside herring and beer. In Denmark, the drink’s industrial history is linked to Aalborg.
Flattened meat patties made from ground meat, typically half pork and half veal, fried in butter until a crust forms. They are homestyle food across Denmark, served with potatoes, a dark gravy and pickles or cabbage.
Hot sausages served in a bun from the pølsevogne, the hot‑dog carts that have operated in Danish cities since 1921, with mustard, ketchup, remoulade, fried onion and pickled cucumber slices. The first carts appeared in Copenhagen.
Cold rice pudding with whipped cream, chopped almonds and vanilla, served with warm cherry sauce at the end of the Christmas dinner. A whole almond is hidden in the serving dish, and whoever finds it receives a gift.
Thickened compote of red fruits such as strawberry, raspberry, currant and cherry, served cold with cream or milk. It’s the classic Danish summer dessert, and the name is famously hard to pronounce.
A slice of rye bread with butter and a generous, carefully arranged topping, eaten with fork and knife. It’s Denmark’s traditional lunch, and the tall, decorated version became famous in Copenhagen restaurants in the late 19th century.
Slices of pork belly fried until crispy, served with boiled potatoes and a white parsley sauce. It was chosen as Denmark’s national dish in a vote held by the Ministry of Food in 2014.
Sweet yeast pastries with layers of butter, shaped as a snail, bow, braid or envelope, filled with custard, remonce or fruit. The first Viennese bakery in Denmark opened in Copenhagen in the 1840s, and the city became associated with the pastry the world calls Danish pastry.
Rye bread with smoked herring, raw egg yolk, radish, chives and onion: the smokehouses’ dish from Bornholm. The name means sun over Gudhjem, and the yolk plays the role of the sun over the village where the island’s first smokehouse opened.
Soft yeast cake topped with a layer of melted butter and brown sugar that forms syrupy pools on the surface. It is regarded as the cake of Fyn, and the earliest records are from Odense, in 1830.
