Marzipan pigs and rye bread: Copenhagen Pastry expands to Pasadena

Fans of Karen Hansen’s remarkable Danish pastries and rye bread, and they are legion, will now have a second place to get their almond paste fix. Hansen and her crew opened their second Copenhagen Pastry shop in Pasadena last Thursday.

The bright white-and-orange shop is on Colorado Boulevard in the eastern part of Pasadena, just east of Rosemead. The location, which used to house a coffee business, looks a lot like the original Copenhagen Pastry in Culver City, and has the same menu of flodeboller and rye bread, Napoleon hats and almond-paste-filled kranse cakes.

And for the holidays, Hansen is also offering little bags of cookies and marzipan pigs — yes, little pigs made out of marzipan that the shop makes using a metal mold that Hansen brought back from her native Denmark.

“My assistant is my mother in Denmark,” says Hansen, whose brother owns bakeries there. The pigs will be in the shop until Christmas Eve, and make pretty fantastic stocking stuffers.

The 2,500-square-foot space includes a front retail space with a big pastry case (no seating) and an enormous bakery and pastry kitchen. There’s also ample parking out back, where Hansen has space for the neighborhood parties she’s planning on throwing, as she does in Culver City. For now, there’s an excellent view of the looming San Gabriel mountains, and a small garden where Hansen has already planted two Japanese maples and some white roses. (Yes, she’s considering opening for the Rose Parade.)

There have also been, of late, peacocks. Something to check out, perhaps, the next time you’re eating a box of Napoleon hats in the parking lot, as some of us have been known to do.

More fun with coffee and bread on Instagram @ascattergood.