A highlight of my whirlwind tour of Copenhagen is a visit to Sømods Blocher, an old-fashioned candy workshop that makes hand-pulled hard candies in a rainbow of colours and flavours. I would not know where to find the place had I not been shown around town by the Brynaa family. Sømods Blocher has a retail store located on a major street but it is the workshop that you really ought to visit. It is here that visitors can watch as the confectioners made all the artisanal candies by hand.
The workshop is located at the end of a little alley off the main road. Upon entering the door, I felt like I was transported in time to a bygone decade. Behind the quaint glass counter, a couple of girls were busy weighing and filling glass jars with candies in shades of pale green and pink using a traditional scale with brass counter-weights. The atmosphere was filled with sweet aroma of sugar. There were two little wooden cabinets hung on the wall with glass front. Inside, you would find the whole array of flavours on the Sømods Blocher catalogue. Being Danish, liquorice obviously took a place of honour with over half dozen variations. Berries and citrus were also major players. But I was attracted by the more unusual flavours with their eye-catching colours. Pears? Rhubarb? Apricot? Pineapple? Cocoa? Honey? Oh my!
Behind the counter, visitors can stand at the gallery and watch the confectioners at work just beyond. We arrived in time to see them finished off pulling and stretching the warm sugar over a big hook on the wall. The bundle of sugar must be quite heavy. Combined with the heat, this is a task that ought to take years to master. It warmed my heart to see confectioners old and young working side by side. The art is being passed from one generation to the next.
I watched in amazement as the confectioner wrapped a huge bundle of yellow candy in a thin sheet of burgundy colour. What flavour could this possibly be? The men kneaded and coxed the sugar into a huge cylinder. With steady hands, they stretched the sugar into a long thin robe with a bright yellow center. Lengths of the still soft candy lined up neatly on the other end of the work table and quickly cooled by a fan. Once the candies hardened enough, they were snipped into manageable lengths and gently tapped with a metal chisel to uniform bite-size pieces. One of the confectioners offered us still-warm and slightly soft pieces of candies off the work table. Oh, it was rhubarb! What a lovely combination of sweet and tart. Now the burgundy and yellow made sense. The candies did resemble little pieces of rhubarb.
I took my time picking out an assortment of flavours to purchase. After much consideration, I had an assortment of pear, rhubarb, princess (vanilla), afrobanana (liquorice & banana), and marzipan. I could stop staring at the pretty shapes and colours! I love the clean taste of each flavour and only wish I had gotten more. I’ll be sure to return next time I revisit Copenhagen.
