Fastelavnsboller

Sunday marks not only Valentine's Day but Fastelavn, a far more important holiday in Denmark.  In fact, according to Danish media, less than 20 percent of Danes celebrate Valentine's Day.  Fastelavn is like the Scandinavian Halloween.  Kids dress up in costumes, have parties, swing a stick at a barrel filled with candy, and pretend to flog their parents for fun. In one family we know the son is dressing up as Indiana Jones and the daughter will be a flower.  Pirates are popular and so is Spiderman.  Anatole had a fastelavn party at daycare last week and donned a tiger costume--although he refused to keep the tiger's head on.

A traditional fastelavn treat is a cream or custard filled pastry.  I originally planned to make a batch but frankly do not need 20 pastries staring me in the face.  It's bad enough that I consumed the entirety of the two I bought for "research purposes."  (And that was after I told myself "Just a bite of each!") But I decided it was safer than being tempted by a multitude of fastelavn buns laying about.  I picked up two because there is the old fashioned (gammels dag boller) pastry made from a yeast dough and a more modern, fancy version with cream stuffed between a sliced flaky pastry bun.  The old fashioned bun with the chocolate on top has a little bit of yellow custard inside; the flaky rendition is filled with lightly sweetened raspberry cream and a small dollop of regular whipped cream.

I haven't tried it, but there is another version of fastelavnsboller with marzipan cream inside.  The bottom line is that these are indeed a treat and you cannot help but smile when you dig into one.  It's food fun at its best.