It was a very exciting week. Years after first hearing about this place from a classmate, I finally went there—not just to buy delicious buns, croissants, and breads, but to actually make them with my own hands.
I was reminded of this bakery during VegChef. One of the ex-students had done an internship there and was now employed as a baker. In April, he came to our school to teach us how to make a princess cake. Back then, I didn’t realise that I could actually go there for a few days while I was in Copenhagen. The idea came to me when a fellow intern told me he had done a one-day internship at a famous bakery in Copenhagen. I immediately contacted the former VegChef student who was working at Leve and asked if I could join them for a few days. I was happy to learn that they did accept interns—even just for a few days—so I went there on Wednesday and Friday to get my hands dirty (in flour).
There are two unique things about this bakery that truly question the norms:
- Everything they bake is plant-based.
- The bakery opens later than most, somewhere between 9–11, allowing employees to start the day at a more humane hour—7 or 8 a.m.—instead of the traditional 3 a.m.
I arrived at 7 a.m., ready to start working immediately, only to realise there was actually time to socialise. I was in shock. People were having conversations, smiling at each other, making jokes and laughing. After the cold treatment I’d experienced at the fine-dining place, my entire nervous system was on high alert—but I was quickly able to let my guard down and return to my normal way of interacting with fellow humans.
Baking at a bakery is so much different from baking at home, mainly due to the scale. Instead of making one loaf of bread, they make a hundred. There are industrial machines for everything, from mixing and laminating the dough to shaping and frying the doughnuts.
Some of the things I got to do during this short time included:
- Laminating, filling, and shaping cardamom and cinnamon buns
- Decorating strawberry mazarin tarts
- Folding and shaping sourdough breads
- Rolling dammsugare (vacuum cleaners) – traditional Swedish sweets
- And last but not least, the Friday doughnut making!
The two bakers working there, and even the owner, were incredibly kind and pedagogical, showing me techniques and explaining different processes.
I learned that planning and prepping things in the correct order is essential to keeping a smooth flow. In baking, everything takes time, and a lot depends on the air humidity and temperature. In summer, proofing the dough might be much faster, and a good baker knows when it’s time for the next step to avoid over-proofing.
I was lucky enough to try some of their pastries and breads, and I must say—no one would ever guess that it’s all vegan. In fact, it’s not widely advertised, aside from a sign on the door stating, “Everything We Bake is Plantbased” The sourdough bread was delicious—hands down the best bread I’ve ever had in Sweden.
Places like this inspire me and give me hope that a vegan world is possible, without any kind of sacrifice in taste. I wonder why we don’t have a bakery like this in Stockholm…
I plan to go back for a few more days next week to deepen my knowledge and become a more confident baker myself.