Have you ever stood in a Danish bakery at four in the afternoon, looking at a tray of what appear to be small chocolate-dipped logs, and wondered what on earth they are? They are træstammer, which simply means tree trunks, and they are one of the most sensible things the Danes have ever done with a stale cake.

Because that is exactly what they are made of. The story goes that they were a thrifty way for bakers to use up yesterday’s unsold cake along with the odds and ends of marzipan, all bound together with a good slug of rum and rolled into logs. Nothing was wasted, and what came out of the back of the shop was arguably nicer than whatever the cake had been in the first place. The ends are dipped in dark chocolate so they look like a freshly sawn branch, and if you are feeling artistic you can score the chocolate a little to suggest the rings.

If they look familiar, you may well know their Swedish cousin. Over there they are called punschrulle, or more commonly dammsugare, which translates rather wonderfully as “vacuum cleaner”, partly for the shape and partly for the hoovering up of crumbs. The Swedish version is wrapped in bright green marzipan rather than plain, with the same chocolate-dipped ends, and if you have ever wandered through the food shop at IKEA you have almost certainly walked past a box of them.

I love them for much the same reason I love romkugler: they belong to the frugal end of Danish baking, the bit that happens quietly behind the counter rather than on the front of a Christmas card. They are also absurdly easy, as there is no actual baking involved whatsoever, which makes them a very good job for small helpers. You should know in advance that a certain amount of the marzipan will go missing in transit.

A shop-bought Madeira cake is perfectly fine for the crumbs, so please do not feel you need to bake a cake in order to make a pudding out of it.

Træstammer (Danish Tree Trunk Cakes)

A festive Danish sweet treat made from rum-soaked cake crumbs and marzipan, rolled into little chocolate-dipped logs.

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Course Dessert

Cuisine Danish

Servings 10 logs

Ingredients

For the filling

200 g dark chocolate melted
400 g cake crumbs shop-bought Madeira cake is fine
1 tbsp dark rum
1 tbsp raspberry or apricot jam
100 g marzipan grated

For the covering

350 g marzipan
100 g dark chocolate melted

Instructions

Melt the 200g dark chocolate.
In a bowl, combine the cake crumbs, melted chocolate, rum, jam, and grated marzipan. Mix until it comes together into a thick, moldable paste.
Divide the mixture in two. Roll each half into a sausage about 35cm long and 2cm in diameter – a sheet of cling film or baking paper makes this easier.
Roll the 350g marzipan out thinly, 1-2mm thick, and cut into two strips large enough to wrap around each sausage.
Lay each sausage onto a marzipan strip and roll up to fully encase it, sealing the seam underneath.
Trim the ends neatly, then cut each log into 6cm lengths.
Dip just the two cut ends of each log into the melted chocolate.
Set on baking paper until the chocolate firms up. Chill if needed.