Learning 2 Bake – from Scratch XLII

Danish

It’s pastry season and I’ve not made Danishes, yet. This recipe at Sugar, Salt, Magic looks good. It is filled with helpful tips, but the recipe, itself, is just:

226 g unsalted butter (2 sticks), coarsely grated and very cold
390 g flour
1 cup milk – cold
2 1/4 tsp instant or active dry yeast (1 sachet)
66 g white granulated sugar (1/3 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg

If this were my grandmother’s cookbook, that would be it. The only thing worth calling out is proofing the yeast: Warm 1/2 cup of milk, add 1 Tbl sugar and yeast. Once it proofs, mix everything else into it then add it to the flour/butter mixture (do the typical pastry thing, first: knife it together).

Cover in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 8-24 hours (I’m cutting that short). This is mostly for moisture distribution. I can’t imagine it will rise much.

Do the pastry fold thing to it for 4 folds. Chill it again to relax the dough.

Before doing this, I see no point in the yeast. It will be too cold for it to rise. Let’s find out…

I recently learned of the shredded butter trick. This is the first time I have done it. IT ROCKS! That’s the new standard for pastry dough. The cut-in time is almost nothing. The yeast proofed like mad, so that’s good.

I usually wrap pastry dough in a tight ball so the water can disperse more easily. This recipe says “mix the ingredients together just until you have a very rough and sticky dough” then “Cover the bowl with plastic wrap”. After mixing, I smushed it together with my hands to try to get all the flour moistened then covered the bowl. Hopefully, this leaves it room to rise, although I have my doubts.

Next step (turning it) will be around 19:00, when I return from the Toastmaster’s meeting. 5.5 hours is not 8-24, but it’s just going to have to suffice.

Turned at 19:30.

I was right: No rise. On the other hand, I also forgot the egg. It is chilling in the ‘fridge (rolling pin in the freezer). Meanwhile, on to the filling.

I liked Easy Cheese Danish from Natasha’s Kitchen. If only there were a recipe on that page. I extracted it from the video:

8 oz cream cheese, softened (usually one package)
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp fresh lemon zest

Mix it all together until it is creamy filling.

I liked this recipe for its look: Split dough into two pieces. Keep one in the refrigerator. Roll the other to 1/8 thick. Cut into 12 strips. Pinch ends of two together (to make one long strip). Twist it. Wrap it around itself in a spiral, pinching the end in. Flatten the middle for the filling (this is probably worth checking out the video). Put a tablespoon of filling in. Stick fruit in the filling. Put on baking sheet. Repeat until done.

Egg wash (1 egg + 1 Tbl water) them.

Bake in 400 degree, preheated, oven for about 18 minutes (puffed up and golden brown on the edges).

I don’t have any fresh fruit, but I do have choke-cherry jelly from the farmers’ market. I don’t want them to sit overnight, so I’m going to get them on the baking sheet tonight then egg wash and bake them tomorrow morning.

Sheeted at 22:00.

One is made from the ragged-edge scraps. That one is breakfast!

And done at 07:00. They look and smell yummy. For me, the size is fairly consistent. The bread part is, well, bready. The egg probably would have helped. It’s pastry dough: I rolled it too much and too warmly; it didn’t get maximum flakiness. The filling is tasty, but just a bit bland. I think the fresh-berry idea is the way to go.

I’ll glaze and plate them without updating this post. Enough live blogging for one week.