Racine's O&H Danish Bakery Celebrates Kringles
Since 1949, the family bakery has served the traditional Danish pastry to Wisconsin, the greater Midwest, and beyond.
Welcome to the weekend!
Have you ever had a kringle? If you live in Wisconsin, that answer is most likely yes, but the oblong Danish pastry, which features fillings ranging from almond to chocolate and beyond, can be had all across the country, thanks to the efforts of Racine’s O&H Danish Bakery, which offers national delivery. We’re longtime kringle-enjoyers, and a trip to the lakeside town of Racine is worth your time if you’re also a fan, since it’s the country’s center of kringle production (and we’ll have more recommendations from there later this year!). For this week’s Cover Story, Amy chatted with O&H Danish Bakery President Peter Olesen about the company’s long history, his favorite flavors, and more.
We just returned from a terrific visit to South Carolina, so be sure to snag a copy of our Charleston Field Guide. It features a freshly updated six-day itinerary with all our picks for coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks over 74 pages. It’s free for paid subscribers, or can be purchased for $20 on our website. It’s an essential guide to all the places we feel are worth your time and money when you visit town — not only do we tell you which restaurants and bars to visit, we tell you what to order at each place, include links to Google maps and Instagram, and feature original photography of each place. Plus, paid subscribers get access to our Google map, an essential tool for finding good food on the road (our map features over 700 locations and is growing each month).
We paired our trip to Charleston with a long weekend in Savannah, Georgia, which is two hours’ drive South. While there, we dined at Brochu’s Family Tradition, a terrific Southern spot led by Andrew Brochu, who we know from his time cooking at Chicago restaurants like Roister. For The Order this week, we share some can’t-miss dishes for when you visit.
And finally, we’ve put together a Weekend Reading list for you. Read about a new favorite bar in Chicago, where to eat Kansas City burnt ends, and all about Colorado-style pizza.
Thanks for reading!
— Amy Cavanaugh & Kenney Marlatt
A Wisconsin Tradition
RACINE, WIS. — When I called Peter Olesen, president of O&H Danish Bakery, he asked me how I was first introduced to kringle, since I’m not from Racine (my Western Massachusetts area code is a giveaway every time). In truth, I don’t recall my first one. My best guess would be that I picked one up at Gene’s Sausage Shop in Chicago’s Lincoln Square, but regardless of where I first had it, kringle quickly became part of my own traditions — I order them for Christmas and birthdays and frequently give them as gifts. Kenney, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs near the Wisconsin border, always recalls having kringle around and regularly ordering them after his family moved to Virginia.
As the fourth generation running the 76-year-old company, Olesen, too, always had kringle around. “It was always a centerpiece in our family,” he says. “We make hundreds of items every day, and a lot of products end up at our table as well. One thing we’ve always shared with our team is that the customer expects us to make a great tasting product. Every kringle that goes in a bag could be the centerpiece of someone’s brunch table.” And there are a lot of brunch tables filled with O&H kringles — Olesen says they can make thousands a day, which adds up to millions of kringles a year.
O&H is based in Racine, which has a long history of kringles. The pastry came to the Midwest via 19th century Danish immigrants, who settled in the Racine area and brought their pretzel-shaped treats with them. Over time, that shape changed as local eaters wanted more filling – as a result, most kringles are now oval-shaped. Though there have been some novelty kringles — “In the 1990s, during the summer Olympics in Atlanta, there was a train bringing the torch and it stopped locally,” Olesen says. “I remember there was a kringle made of colored rings to commemorate the torch coming through Racine.”
It’s a three-day process to make each kringle, which has 36 layers of laminated dough with filling in the center and icing on top. While the process hasn’t changed, over the years, other aspects of O&H’s kringle production have modernized. That includes adding new flavors to keep up with tastes, opening new stores, and creating a mail order system.
“In the late 1960s or 1970s, people started saying, ‘I want to share this with people around the country,’ and my grandfather focused on how to package and box it well and the right methods of shipping,” Olesen says. While Christmas is the biggest kringle season, mail order has helped them offer special kringles for birthdays, Easter, Mardi Gras (they make a king cake-inspired kringle), and other holidays throughout the year. “There are so many great reasons to share food and we can help people celebrate,” Olesen says. “Mail order has been over half of our business since the 1980s and that has helped spread the word about a still relatively unknown product.”
While kringles may still be primarily a regional treat, you’ll find them at other Racine bakeries, including Bendtsen's Bakery, which is known for its pecan version. Racine Danish Kringles, Lehmann’s Bakery, and Paielli’s Bakery also have them. “The support for craft baking in Racine is incredible,” Olesen says. We’re also fans of Green Bay’s Uncle Mike’s Bake Shoppe — their raspberry flavor is superb. When we visited the shop, we had savory kringles with bacon, a fun innovation.
But O&H is our go-to kringle. When we were last in Racine, we stopped into their newest shop, which has the prow of a Viking ship out front. There’s a whole library of kringle flavors to pick one out to take home. But O&H is not a one-trick pony — the pastry and freezer cases contain doughnuts, layer cakes, Danish grain bread, cream of chicken soup, ham spread, Danish butter cookies, and much more. You’ll also find candles scented like kringle flavors, stuffed Ohlaf mascots, and a lunchtime sandwich menu. On our visit, we filled up cups of house blend Hygge coffee, tried samples of chocolate kringle, got frosted sprinkle doughnuts, and picked up an almond kringle to take home.
Almond is our favorite kringle flavor, but O&H is constantly innovating, releasing new flavors every month or two. A perusal of their catalog shows flavors like turtle, rhubarb, churro, banana cream pie, and red, white, and blue, a festive summer seasonal kringle that’s filled with cherry, blueberry, and cream cheese. Olesen says they look to food trends for new ideas, but it’s really “customers telling us what they want.” Their ideation process includes about 15 staff members, and they test repeatedly to see if it will work. “There have been plenty of things that haven’t made it out,” he says. “When we decide to release a new flavor, we’re really listening to customer feedback. We get thousands of reviews through our website. People love to come in and talk about food with us. Customers let us know whether it was a success or it needs tweaks.”
One of those innovations was the brandy old-fashioned kringle, a seasonal offering that Olesen calls “a true Wisconsin flavor.” The brandy old fashioned is “such an iconic drink,” he says. “If you cut a slice that gets toffee, filling, and pastry all in one bite, you get that orange zest, you get the cherry, the creamy vanilla. It really does represent that pretty well.”
A bestseller is the Wisconsin kringle, stuffed with Door County cherries and cranberries. “In 2014, when Wisconsin named the kringle the state pastry, we came out with the Wisconsin kringle,” Olesen says. “It has Wisconsin cream cheese as the base, then we layer in Door County cherries. We have a long relationship with a family farm in Door County. Then, of course, cranberries — Wisconsin is the biggest producer of cranberries in the country, and we work with co-ops there to source them. Bringing those flavors into one, you get the sweetness of the cherries, the tartness of the cranberries, the smooth cheese filling.” If you haven’t had kringle before, this one would be a good place to start. As Olesen says, “It’s bringing the best of Wisconsin ingredients together into one kringle.”
Download All Our Charleston Recommendations
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Oysters from Brochu’s Family Tradition
SAVANNAH, GA. — We went to Savannah last month, in large part to dine at Brochu’s Family Tradition, a terrific spot in the city’s Starland District. Led by Andrew Brochu, a Georgia native who spent years cooking with the Alinea Group in Chicago, Brochu’s serves Southern dishes like fried chicken dinners, peel and eat shrimp, chicken liver mousse with spiced pecans, and more.
There’s also a robust oyster program, which includes 13 different preparations featuring both raw and cooked takes. The offerings include wasabi pea tobiko on raw oysters, scallion white wine on steamed oysters, and caper brown butter on roasted oysters. We went with two: spicy grilled Caribbean jerk oysters and the roasted French onion oysters, which are a riff on the soup. Both are fun takes on classic Lowcountry roasted oysters, and set you up well for a dinner here.
2400 Bull St, Savannah, GA 31401 | @brochus_restaurant
ILLINOIS
Gus’ Sip & Dip Delivers Updated Cocktail Faves: “Classics are classics for a reason. But at Gus’ Sip & Dip, the new River North cocktail bar from beverage director Kevin Beary and bar manager Scott Kitsmiller, classic cocktails are rethought with such a laser focus that they can make you think about a drink you’ve imbibed for years in a whole new way.” That’s Amy writing about one of our favorite new bars in Chicago magazine. Beary and Kitsmiller are killing it with their menu of classics. I’m more than halfway through the menu and there are no duds. More importantly, these cocktails are so dialed in that I even crave their versions of drinks I typically do not care for. (Looking at you, Dirty Martini.)
COLORADO
Colorado-Style Pizza Is All About the Crust: “Unlike pizza itself, there are no arguments among historians about the origins of ‘Colorado-style’ pizza,” writes Cynthia Barnes in Food & Wine. “With a crust as craggy and massive as its Rocky Mountains and a honey finish as sweet as a John Denver song, Colorado’s ‘mountain pies’ are indisputably the invention of one man: Chip Bair.” Bair’s pizza joint, Beau Jo’s in Idaho Springs, has been serving their signature pies for more than 50 years. But if you don’t think you’ll find yourself in Idaho Springs anytime soon, Barnes has a few more spots to order the regional specialty. (I may have stopped in at The Sink a time or two when I worked at the Boulder Daily Camera.)
KANSAS
Experiencing Real-Deal Burnt Ends: I’ve been through Kansas City enough that when I stop at a barbecue spot, I know to order the burnt ends. But knowing is only half the battle. “With a barbecue scene as varied as it is large, I’ve come to learn that every Kansas City establishment has its specialty and you need to know where to go for what,” writes
. Her pick for burnt ends? Danny Edwards BLVD BBQ. Add it to your list.— Compiled by Kenney Marlatt
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Thanks for the mention - I hope you make it to Danny Edwards soon!
Love Kringles!