Homemade Danish Pastry

Posted by olivieragustin on Aug. 11th, 2005 in Recipes | 7 comments

The first time I made Danish pastry was two years ago, and I swore I’d never do it again. It’s not difficult to do, but it’s just a helluva lot of work. And waiting around. Bread cookbooks always say that you can fit your bread making into your schedule and I agree with that… I think. I’m just so darn impatient is all.

But if you’re in the right mood, making your own Danish pastry is its own reward. I was surprised by the complexity and richness of the Danish(es) I made. Almost as good as the ones in the best hotel breakfast buffets. (woohoo!)

Danish pastry is what’s called by professional bakers as a “laminated dough” – flaky layers are achieved from the folding and turning of the dough. The dough is also kept chilled so that the pockets of butter remain solid – once they’re in the oven, they melt and the steam generated by the layers of dough bakes up into a flaky pastry. This procedure is similar to the one used in making croissants and puff pastry.

Danishes are most commonly eaten for breakfast and are shaped and filled in a myriad of ways. I chose to shape my dough into a Danish braid and individual pinwheel pastries. The Danish braid looks more difficult than it really is. All I did was to mark the dough into three parts, then I slashed the two outermost sections into 1-inch intervals. (see photo). Then the slashes are folded over the center alternately to form a “braid.”

The filling for my pastries was almond paste that I made some time ago. Slightly coarser than marzipan, almond paste is a mixture of blanched, crushed almonds; egg white, and sugar (and it’s not available in Manila — for shame!). To the almond paste I added a dollop of either strawberry or guava jelly. After all that work and almost 12 hours of preparation, thank God these pastries only require a 15- minute baking time. The result, according to my best friend Bal, is “uber-good.”