Cake orgy in southern Jutland

In the south of Jutland there is a special tradition for meeting up and eating cake. This tradition is only found in this southern part of the country and nowhere else. And it isn’t just one or two cakes it is many cakes. The tradition dates back to the years when Germany ruled this part of Denmark. The Danes still wanted to meet up and keep their language and traditions alive.

They wanted to meet somewhere and have a drink. But the Germans wouldn’t give them a license to sell alcohol at these locations. Instead they met up to eat cake and drink coffee. The people meeting up usually brought their own cakes so everybody took different cakes and they were shared. Since everybody brought along a cake they each took want they were good at making so there was always a huge selection of cakes.

The cake eating tradition still exist and the standard Sønderjyske kagebord South Jutland cake table consist of a minimum of seven hard and seven soft cake. The hard cakes are some sort of cookies and the soft are all sorts of different cakes usually with cream you cut and have a piece of.

If you are very lucky you get an invite to a local place and eat the cake the way it is supposed to be. If you don’t know anybody in advance you will have to try and find a place where they serve the traditional cake table. A good place is den Gamle Kro in Gråsten. The small town has this old inn which every second Sunday serves no less than 29 different cakes. You can buy your ticket in advance for 150 DKK or around 20€. The price let you eat as much cake as you can and drink as much coffee you need to get the cakes down.

You sit in a large room with a big table with all the cakes – and then you spend the next couple of hours eating cake. And fortunately they do refill the cake table so you won’t miss out even if you don’t get your favorite cake the first time around.

I will spare you a detailed description of all the different cakes – anyway I had to give up before trying the last of the 29 cakes. And I still could eat dinner this evening.

You can reach the small town of Gråsten by train or car. The city is actually on the main train line to Copenhagen so there is a train every second hour to and from Copenhagen which will get you to Copenhagen in 3½ hours or so.