Under the heading 'Have a pastry for' the entry was meant to tempt readers with 'homemade favorites' for the upcoming Christmas holiday. But to Swedish Television (SvT) the neatly laid out photograph appeared to show pastries in the shape of swastikas.
The photo has since gone viral on social media with SvD reportedly receiving many comments on its publication – which may explain why the article can no longer be found on the paper's online site.
After SvT picked up on the story it asked a staff member of the paper what she thought about the image leading to thoughts of things other than holiday treats.
"We never thought of these as anything other than cookies, Christmas stars. But now that I look at the picture, I can see how you might see that,' Stina Cederholm, features editor at SvD, said.
The broadcaster pressed further:
SvT: How did you come up with it?
Cederholm: "To me, this is a cultural item from another world, a piece of cooking history. If you'd never seen stars, maybe you'd think, 'Oh, what a weird shape.' But our idea was just to show great cakes from the past.'
Svt: Great cakes from, say, the 30s?
Cederholm: "No. Just a pastry. I've got to laugh. It's funny. I do not know what to say. Our goal was just to give our readers delicious cookie recipes for Christmas."
The story soon spread to neighboring Finland, where people wondered what all the fuss was about. Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat observed that a few Finns gave SvT some feedback on its Nazi angle, including one commenter who pointed out, "This is not a new creation, but the most common and traditional pastry offered in almost all Finnish homes at Christmas for the last hundred years, if not more. No one in Finland has ever seen it as a swastika."
Indeed, the Nordic Recipe Archive website has a page devoted to these sweets. Check it out: Star-Shaped Christmas Pastries.
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