If you’re a cake-lover, you’ll find many places to satisfy your cravings in Copenhagen. The Danish capital is brimming with patisseries. Then there’s Aarhus – the second largest city in Denmark. While it’s quite a bit farther away, that hardly matters. Once you’ve tasted and fallen in love with the beautiful individual cakes from the small patisserie Gotfred in Aarhus, you’re more than willing to make the trip.
Patisserie Gotfred has achieved near-cult status among both food enthusiasts and regular Danes in an impressively short amount of time – to the extent that geographical location has become insignificant, and visitors flock from near and far.
‘It’s surreal to think that we are already experiencing this kind of success,’ says Sonia Pedersen, the owner of Gotfred who runs the small patisserie in the centre of Aarhus with head pastry chef Sofie Jakobsen and pastry chef Frida Jensen. ‘But I think timing plays a big role. When we opened at the beginning of 2022, we simply found a gap in the market. And we have some really good products.’
‘We are incredibly skilled at what we do; I’m not afraid to say that out loud,’ Sofie adds. ‘The cakes are aesthetically beautiful, and they taste great. That’s not something you necessarily experience in many other places. There are many beautiful cakes around, but they don’t always taste as good – because it becomes a question of prioritisation, whether they should taste good or look good. If you want both, it costs. We have chosen not to compromise on either.’
According to Frida, this approach – where the cakes must satisfy both the eyes and the taste palate – is crucial: ‘Our cakes are well-crafted. Everything is made from scratch, nothing is spared, and we are very attentive to textures and flavour balances. We spend a lot of time on acid/salt balances, and that might also be why many people who aren’t typically “cake eaters” enjoy our cakes – because they offer something “special”.’
From Hobby Project to Entrepreneurial Dream
The story of Gotfred begins in 2022 in a private home close to Aarhus. Sonia was on maternity leave with her son when a new career path suddenly began to take shape, as she explains: ‘I have always baked a lot at home and got a lot out of being creative and combining flavours and textures. At one point, I created an Instagram profile where I sold individual cakes, and after a few weeks it completely escalated. Our oven at home simply couldn’t keep up.’
’It’s thanks to people’s enthusiasm and support that we are here today.’
Sonia continues: ‘It was clear that there was a market for this type of cake, so my husband and I took the leap. We found a location, we found Sofie, and then we got started.’ The support was overwhelming from the very beginning: ‘It’s thanks to people’s enthusiasm and support that we are here today. When you’ve worked 12 hours straight and there’s not much left to give, it’s the customers’ enthusiasm that makes you push through another 12 hours.
One for All, and All for One
It certainly helps that the team at Gotfred is perfectly matched. There is no Gotfred without Sonia, Sofie, and Frida, and although Sonia and her husband own the business, no decisions are made without involving the other two.
‘We run the place together. It’s because of our different backgrounds, experiences, and ideas that we have come as far as we have,’ explains Sonia.
‘We challenge each other and contribute different perspectives, and there is no one right way – which means no one always gets their way. We leverage each other’s strengths, and it just works really well. Probably also because we have a huge shared passion for this project,’ elaborates Sofie.
‘It also makes the creative process more fun – that we can challenge each other. I might think something can only be done one way, but then Sofie comes up with a completely different idea, and that way, we find the best solution. We are very aware that we have a common goal, and that different paths to it can be equally good,’ says Frida.
Chaos and Sugar Rush
So how does this dream team create the cakes that are so popular that customers travel from afar to sample them?
‘We always start with a brainstorm. When you work professionally with food, flavours, and textures, you’re constantly inspired. Maybe you’ve tasted a mousse somewhere that had the perfect consistency or a yoghurt that paired insanely well with a specific fruit.
‘At some point, your head gets so full of inspiration and ideas that you need to translate them into something real and let them out into the world. That’s what we use the brainstorming session for,‘ Frida explains.
‘After the brainstorming comes a wild phase. You have to be in the right mood for it. Here we bombard the kitchen. We produce, taste, adjust, and produce even more – all to get closer to a core idea for a cake. It’s one big chaos, where each of us works in a flow at our own station. When we can’t go on any longer, we clean up and leave with a sugar rush. The next day, we pick up where we left off.‘
‘At some point, we hit on flavours, textures, and designs that make sense for what we want to achieve. Then it’s all about refining from there,’ adds Sofie.
‘For me, this whole creation process is both my favourite and my least favourite thing. It demands so much, but the result makes it all worth it. And you quickly forget all the frustrations along the way.’
‘Yes, and it’s especially during this process that our teamwork and understanding really matter. Because we work so well together, we know when to support each other, give a hug, and praise each other when something works. We’re great at being each other’s biggest cheerleaders,’ says Sonia.
Favourite Cake
At the little patisserie in Aarhus, there are always six cakes on the menu, along with a limited edition cake that changes every month. And while it’s hard to choose between your children, there is one cake that stands out as the ‘all-time favourite’:
‘It almost has to be our signature cake: the apple cake. In many ways, Gotfred is that apple cake – and our customers agree. When I first made the initial version, I wanted to work with a dessert as Danish as possible, and my son’s great-grandfather – Kai Gotfred – especially loved traditional apple cake. So, it became the dessert I reinterpreted.
A month after we opened the shop, we were nominated for Aarhus’ best cake with that cake. It will probably never leave the menu,’ says Sonia. ‘The apple cake has something very special in terms of the balances we’ve talked about earlier. There’s acidity, sweetness and salt in perfect balance, and you get treated to a crispy shell, a soft mousse and a slightly runny compote. It’s also an intense cake because you have to consider many elements at once, but with this one, it works quite well,’ Sofie adds.
Despite award-winning cakes, accolades, and a level of success that few new businesses dare to dream of, the three women behind Gotfred remain firmly grounded. Therefore, Gotfred will look much the same in five years as it does today:
‘We like it small and authentic, and we don’t want to scale up and lose the quality we’re known and appreciated for. If the quality and the originality don’t hold, then nothing holds. So, we’re staying here,’ Sonia says.
Patisserie trends
Are you also interested in patisserie trends? Then grab your fork and join Gotfred on a mouth-watering journey through some of the trends and tendencies in the sweet kitchen. Here are Sonia, Sofie, and Frida’s perspective on cake trends: