July 25, 2022 
Our “local-for-local” approach embraces local specialities and provides bakers with robust tools to craft great-tasting local favourites. Throughout Scandinavia, the consumption of sweet coffee bread is so huge that there is even a special word for “having a break” in Swedish, which means drinking coffee and eating something sweet.
The word is Fika is so well established that it is used as both a noun and a verb. “Let’s take a fika” is the most uplifting message you can receive from a long-lost friend. The social aspect is as important as the delicious mix of steaming coffee and a sweet pastry.
The things we “fika” most on are braided sweet buns in different varieties and flavours. The Cinnamon Bun (Kanelbulle) is the most common bun found in Scandinavian cafés. It is a sweet bread dough rolled up with a swirl of sweet cinnamon filling, sprinkled with pearl sugar which does not melt at high temperatures and creates a characteristic look with white dots on top of the bun.
Sweden for example even has a special day for the classic Cinnamon Bun. On 4th October every year, 9 million Cinnamon Buns are sold in Sweden on the official Cinnamon Bun Day alone. That is quite the number for a population of 10 million people.
The topic of pastries would not be the same without mention for the adored Danish pastry. In Denmark, just look for a storefront with a wooden pretzel hanging in front (the Danish sign for a bakery), the varieties are vast and fillings don’t just stop at cream cheese, though–in Denmark you can find Danishes filled with fruit jams, chocolates, and custard fillings. Unlike the single-serving ones normally found in the states, you can get impressively flaky Danishes that could feed a large family for dessert. In Denmark, they’re actually referred to as viennabrød in reference to the Viennese bakers that shared the techniques of laminated pastries with the Danes.
Pastry ingredients which deliver taste and convenience
Our Swedish colleagues in Gothernburg manufacture Remonces – ready-to-use spreadable fillings for both craft and industrial customers, well suited for these types of pastries and deliver a superb taste and visual appear to pastries. Remonces are sold in large volumes throughout Scandinavia as well as in the Baltics, which is a growing market. Remonces from Bakels are even available in Greece and China.
The most popular products are in the range of Palm Free Remonces, available in many different flavours. Bakels Sweden recently added a new Clean Label range to meet the intensifying trend for clean label products. Clean Label is, by its definition, about a short ingredient list with clean recognisable ingredients.
The trend for transparency, focus on health and greater interest in what goes into food has led to consumers checking labels more than ever before and they value ingredients that are sourced from nature, with artificial or chemical ingredients more and more unfavourable. There is also a desire for excluding ingredients that consumers may perceive to be unnecessary and a trend and a technical development area Bakels are exploring throughout the ranges.
