Danish
Before diving into Holiday Dessert Extravaganza at Project Pastry Love, I wanted to bake one more laminated dough recipe. I decided to make homemade Danish. I haven’t worked on this dough in a while, and I love to reward myself with something sweet like Danish when I drink my afternoon coffee. However, if I were being completely honest, I feel a little sorry for Danish. I mean, how can you compete in a world full of doughnuts, croissants, and Egg Mcmuffins, especially when most people think of you as the prepackaged, stale, and overly sweet pastry found in vending machines. Come on Danish, it’s time to show the people who you really are!
I have to decided to cut corners a bit, and work on an easy Danish recipe. Instead of using a butter block that is folded into the dough (see puff pastry), I pulsed the flour and chilled butter pieces together in a food processor. This technique is similar to how I make pie dough.
Danish dough is like croissant dough in that they both contain yeast. The difference between the two is that Danish contains more sugar and butter. Oh, and it usually has some cardamom sprinkled in for good measure. And eggs. It has eggs in it too.
Pulse together the flour mixture with cubes of chilled butter in a food processor.
The butter/flour mixture should resemble breadcrumbs.
Mix in the yeast mixture and stir together until the flour is coated.
Wrap up the dough and chill in the fridge for 24 hours.
Roll the dough out to a rough rectangle (14″ x 16″), and then fold it up like a business letter.
This completes the first “turn”. Now do 3 more turns. Chill in between if necessary.
Once you have completed all 4 turns, and the dough has been chilled for at least 30 minutes, roll it out to a 14″ x 16″ rectangle. Trim edges to make straight lines.
With a pizza cutter, cut out 3″ x 3″ squares.
To make Danish Pinwheels of sorts…
Cut diagonally from the corners.
Fold every other corner to the center and press into place.
To make a bear claw, pipe your filling in the center of the square…
Fold one side about 3/4ths over.
Snip the ends of one side…
And bring up the sides to spread out the “claw”.
To make a Danish Twist, take a 16″ strip of dough…
Pipe, or smear your filling on half of the strip.
Fold the other half over top of the filling side.
Roll one end towards you and the other end away from you, so the strip twists.
Curl the strip into a spiral shape.
Brush each pastry with an egg glaze before baking.
Easy Danish Pinwheels
- 3 1/4 cups (404 g) All-Purpose Flour
- 1 1/2 cups (340 g) chilled Unsalted Butter, cut in 1/4" pieces
- 2 packages Active Dry Yeast
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) warm Water (105 to 115 degrees F)
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) Heavy Cream
- 1/2 tsp. (2.5 g) Salt
- 2 Eggs, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (50 g) Sugar
- Egg for egg glaze
- any canned fruit filling for pastries
- 1 tube Almond Paste
- 1 tube Chocolate Almond Paste
- 1 cup (125 g) Powdered Sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (125 g) Powdered Sugar
- 1/4 cup (56.5 g) Unsalted Butter, melted
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- In a food processor, pulse together flour and butter pieces until it resembles bread crumbs.
- In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let stand for 5 minutes.
- Stir in the cream, cardamom, salt, eggs, and sugar.
- Turn the flour/butter mixture into the liquid ingredients, and carefully mix with a rubber spatula- just until the dry ingredients are moistened.
- Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours, overnight, or as long as 4 days.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board; dust with flour.
- Pound and flatten the dough to make a 14" by 16" rectangle.
- Fold into thirds, like a business letter. Turn the dough around so that it is like a book, and roll out again to 14" by 16" rectangle. Repeat these "turns" 3 more times. Chill the dough between each turn if needed.
- After you have completed all four turns, chill the dough for 30 minutes in the refrigerator, or as long as overnight.
- Place the entire contents of the regular almond paste in a food processor.
- Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar and one egg.
- Pulse until well combined.
- Repeat the same process for the chocolate almond filling.
- Combine the melted butter, and vanilla extract in a medium bowl.
- Sift the powdered sugar over top.
- Mix until well combined.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Roll out chilled dough to a 14" by 16" rectangle, and cut the edges to form straight lines.
- With a pizza cutter, cut out 3" by 3" squares.
- With each square, dollop about a teaspoon worth of filling and then fold into whichever type of Danish you'd like.
- Brush each pastry with the egg glaze (1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon of water).
- Bake until golden brown, about 14 minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack and drizzle glaze over top.
