Rosenborg Bakeri

Aurora and I tried pastries from many places while we were in Norway (okay, so I tried more than she did): coffee shops, several different grocery stores, and bakeries. By far, the bakery that most impressed us was Rosenborg Bakeri, in the Rosenborg neighborhood of Trondheim.

The bakery is just a couple of blocks from our friends Troy and Carin’s apartment where we were staying, but somehow it took us until our last couple of days in the country to realize that it was there, because it was the opposite direction from the apartment than we had walked for the first several days of our visit.

When we finally made it to this chic neighborhood cafe, we were impressed by the breadth of their selections and spent several minutes in front of the display case trying to decide what to order. Finally, we settled on three from the “buy 2, get one free” selections. At 22 kroner per pastry (about $4.50), they were downright reasonably priced for Norway, where in general you can expect things to cost about twice what they would in the states. We opted to get 2 of the pastries for eating there, and one to go–and in so doing added a hefty surcharge onto the price of our pastries. We’d learn later that anytime you dine in in Norway, you pay a hefty tax for the services provided; but if you purchase something to go, it is taxed at a lower rate as a foodstuff.

Oh well. The atmosphere of sitting outside on the deck in fromt of the bakery was worth the extra several kroner. I opted for the raisin roll (the raisins are tough to see in the picture, but they were there), which Troy told me is a ubiquitous Norwegian breakfast, especially if slathered with liberal amounts of butter (I took him up on his serving suggestion). The roll was spiced with a slight hint of cloves, which made for a very pleasant touch.

Aurora got the pastry with the vanilla-flavored cream, which was colored yellow. She was surprised that this filling was vanilla-flavored (she expected lemon), but was not disappointed. The pastry was flaky; the filling was sweet–a perfect combination.

The third pastry, which we wound up eating as we sat there even though we had purchased it to go, consisted of a flaky pastry dough covered with nuts and sticky sweetness, topped with a lemon fondant. It, too, was spectacular.

The next morning, we left Trondheim for a weekend exploring beautiful Geiranger Fjord.  It was a spectacular weekend filled with beautiful vistas of towering mountaintops that descend immediately to sea level, their expanses dotted with waterfalls and small villages.

The range of sights and tastes we found in the fjord made up for our not being able to make a return visit to Rosenborg Bakeri before we had to leave Norway to come back home to the states–but just barely.  The pastries were that good.

Rosenborg Bakeri is located at 10 Rosenborg Gate, Trondheim, Norway.

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