Marie havnø frank

 For as long as she can remember, Marie has obsessed with bold flavors and aromas. “The first photographs of me are from the kitchen, standing on a chair, stirring the pots,” she recalls. “I have always loved to cook, but never desserts,” she says, with a shy grin looking back. “They just never seemed inspiring to me”

Gazing at the mouth-watering window of perfection that is her Instagram, her words seem mind-boggling. To even begin to make sense of them, we need to take a journey into the mind of the self-taught pastry queen of Copenhagen. A journey through an unlikely series of events that began five years ago and may prove the answer to the ultimate question: What is so hot about an unassuming pastry that is essentially a cross between a pretentious pancake and a Crème brûlée?

Marie Havnøe Frank - the accidental pastry chef

In January of 2016. Marie was on maternity leave with her first-born and had a hard time keeping herself entertained. “This was when I realized how incredibly boring maternity leave is,” she says with her trademark earnestness and laugh. “After having watched every episode of my favorite shows on Netflix, I started stumbling through the random, confusing landscape that is Instagram.”

“Here I stumbled upon a mind-blowing female chocolatier and pastry chef. She made things that made me go ‘What the… Wait? desserts can do that? Chocolate filled with coriander, fig and serrano chili. The beauty of the craft and the flavors. What I thought was a relatively limited medium, sugar that is, became something entirely else for me. Something I, too, wanted to pursue.”

“My first feeble attempts were hopeless,” she grins honestly. “I could not make custard. My shortcrust was laughable.” Yet, every time her baby was sleeping, she would go back into the kitchen. “It became an obsession for me. By God, I wanted to master shortcrust. I wanted to master the basics.”

In search of canelé perfection

“I kept experimenting at home, carelessly posting things onto Instagram,” says the now seasoned pastry chef, admitting she sometimes feels a little ashamed when someone today presses the like button on her older creations. “No, what are you doing,” she winces in response to the thought, “I was doing it mostly for myself,” she admits.

And so she did. For several years. Slowly getting better at her craft until one day, in 2019, she was hit by an absolute obsession. “I had gotten 12 copper molds for Christmas and canelé, for whatever reason, became my new obsession,” she remembers. “My corona-obsession. I would bake them daily.“

“They would fuck up. They would soufflé. Or they would collapse. They would burn. Oh my how they have turned out badly in so many ways; flat as a pancake, tall as a 1980’s haircut. Every wrong form they could possibly assume, they assumed. I have yelled and I have screamed at them. I have even kicked an oven while sounding like Captain Haddock on a binge,” she grins.

Undeterred, though, she soldiered on. “And at some point it just clicked,” she remembers. “Yes, girl, I thought, and finally published my creations to instagram. Canelé is my image of perfection. I have put a lot of questionable things on my Instagram, even my kids covered in chocolate. But never an imperfect image of canelé.”

In a strange twist of fate, her image of perfection caught the eyes of celebrated chef Torsten Vildgaard who voiced his approval on the post. She then, in what she describes as a wonderful combination of “delusions of grandeur and complete mental breakdown” proceeded to offer the chef a taste. And was terrified when he accepted. “I started baking and prayed to God they would not turn out ugly, she remembers”

Mercifully, they did not, and the respected chef proceeded to praise her work. He, too, posted them on Instagram and that is how things really got rolling. “People started asking if they could purchase some,” Marie remembers, “and I replied ‘Mmmmm…. Maybe?’”

By December, she was in the canelé business and things were looking… Well, once again not too perfect, she readily admits. “In the beginning, some batches turned out less than perfect and I had to refund some orders. I was very moved by how sweet and understanding people were. I did my best. I made mistakes. And gradually I learned to scale.”

Dare to experiment - even if it leads to angry Frenchmen in your DMs!

She also learned to experiment. As much as she loved the classic vanilla flavor of canelé, she suddenly  realized it was not the only possible flavoring for the classic pastry. One day she found some frozen yuzu in her freezer and she added it to the dough. Just to see what would happen.

“You should never be afraid to experiment,” she nods with a smile, “even if it leads to angry Frenchmen in your DMs arguing you cannot do that. Well, guess what. You can,” she says triumphantly, “I just did it. And it tastes amazing!” 

While the purists were in shock, to Marie, the culinary adventurer, this is exactly what is great about living in a country with a developing culinary tradition. “There is still room for playfulness,” she chirps, “it is a cuisine free of dogma and shackles. Copenhagen is a melting pot. There is no feeling that this or that should not be messed with. Does it taste well? Then do it!

Ahd now, that is how she rolls. Her famous canelé are now sold in several enticing flavors such as yuzu, Uganda vanilla and salted chocolate from Xoco Gourmet, one of the world’s best chocolate producers.

Culinary playfulness is important to Marie, but so is quality. “At my very core I have the deepest respect for people who have passion for a certain trait. Be it woodwork, carpentry or growing saffron in Sweden. Unique people who conquer the world with talent. People who obsess about what they do and create beautiful products,” she swoons. Then starts to vividly recall opening the box from chocolate from Xoco Gourmet which became another turning point in her development.

Read also: Xoco Gourmet Chocolate - Creative Rebels

“If I am honest. I did not see chocolate as a particularly exciting ingredient. It tastes well on its own. Everybody cooks with it. And I put a narcissistic honor into not walking down the same path as everybody else. Yet, I was sent this box of chocolate and, as soon as I opened it, I was taken aback. It smelled and tasted completely unlike what I expected chocolate to smell and taste like . It was much more vinous, aromatic and intense. I received the box at 7PM. At 8PM I was in the kitchen making ice cream base.”

“Products like chocolate from Xoco Gourmet are not easy mediums. If you head down that road, you are heading straight for flavor town. My job as a chef is to let the ingredient shine and not overpower it. To respect the ingredients and flavors. To work with it and make the most of it. Make it almost overpowering.”

“If I use pistachios as an ingredient, for example. I use the best, and I use a ton of them. Your mouth should be filled with pistachios. You need to smell and taste the ingredients. Otherwise it does not fucking matter, does it really?” She then turns her head and stares in wonder. “Things can be incredibly beautiful. No, things should be incredibly beautiful. But if there is no flavor, then what,” she sighs as her tone of voice and facial expression go from happy to thoughtful.

Respect for quality products

“I wish there was the same attention to quality of ingredients as there is to presentation. That is my dream,” says the woman known for her aesthetic creations. “I wish we focused not only on how beautiful a dish looks, but on the quality of its components as well. It is easy, even in December, to go to the store, buy fresh raspberries and make the most beautiful raspberry pie. But there are so many beautiful things in season right now that taste so much better,” she says with the slightest pinch of melancholy as the conversation falls on hopes and dreams for a better culinary future. Then breaks back into her signature smile.

“But there is more. I also dream of this little hole-in-the-wall place of my own,” she says when coaxed to continue down the path of her dreams. “A place where I make just enough of all my favorite things every day. From quality, seasonal ingredients full of flavor! I think that will happen someday. An itsy-bitsy patisserie,” she giggles again, “where I can create all the little things I find brilliant... And if nobody shows up, I guess I will have to go find the old maternity pants and take care of my own business!”