Danish pastries were brought with immigrants to the United States, where they are often topped with a fruit or cream cheese filling, and are now popular around the world.

[2] Danish pastry is made of yeast-leavened dough of wheat flour, milk, eggs, sugar, and large amounts of butter or margarine.

The process of rolling, buttering, folding, and chilling is repeated multiple times to create a multilayered dough that becomes airy and crispy on the outside, but also rich and buttery.

The strike caused bakery owners to hire workers from abroad, among them several Austrian bakers, who brought along new baking traditions and pastry recipes.

[citation needed] Due to such novelties the Danes called the pastry "wienerbrød" (Vienna bread) and that name is still in use in Northern Europe today.

Some are topped with chocolate, pearl sugar, glacé icing, and/or slivered nuts and they may be stuffed with a variety of ingredients such as jam or preserves (usually apple or prune), remonce, marzipan, and/or custard.

Shapes are numerous, including circles with filling in the middle (known in Denmark as Spandauers), figure-eights, spirals (known as snails), and the pretzel-like kringles.

In the UK, various ingredients such as jam, custard, apricots, cherries, raisins, flaked almonds, pecans, or caramelized toffee are placed on or within sections of divided dough, which is then baked.