How to make Danish pastries

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Daniel Pfyl, hospitality management lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, shares some professional techniques to make your cooking easier. This month, at the request of Chloe Rosenberg, he demonstrates how to make Danish pastries.

 

Danish pastries are made from an enriched yeasted dough that has been laminated - many alternating layers of dough and butter. Croissants are similar but do not contain eggs. Puff pastry is also laminated but not yeasted.

With Danish pastries there's a conflict as you want to keep the butter and dough cold, as you do with puff pastry, but you also need some warmth for the yeast to work. Chef Pfyl recommends a cold kitchen and cold bench for rolling, and only to let the dough rise before putting it in the oven.




Danish pastries
Makes about 650g or about 12, depending on size

Ingredients

125ml milk2
5g caster sugar
3 tsp dried yeast
20g butter, melted and cooled
2 egg yolks
250g strong (breadmaker's) flour
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp ground cardamom
200g unsalted butter
Flour for dusting

Filling

Custard
Poached or canned fruit such as apricot halves, peaches or pears

Topping

Egg wash
Icing
Apricot glaze

 

Method

1) Mix the milk and sugar and warm to body temperature so it doesn't feel hot or cold to touch. You can do this over hot water or in a microwave, but don't have it too hot or the yeast will die. Sprinkle over the dried yeast, cover with a cloth and leave in a warm place until it starts to bubble, about 10 minutes.

2) Melt the 20g of butter in a microwave or over hot water then allow to cool. Put the 200g of soft but not melted butter between plastic sheets (a firm plastic bag slit at the sides is good) press to flatten, then roll out to a rectangular shape and set aside until needed.

3) When the yeast has started bubbling, stir in the egg yolks and melted but cooled butter.

4) Sift in the flour, cardamom and salt. Mix with with a knife or your hands, until it comes together into a dough, then tip on to the bench and knead lightly.

5) It doesn't need as much kneading as bread, and it should be kept cool. Shape into a rectangle, wrap in plastic and rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

The rested dough will be soft and may have shrunk a little. Roll out to a rectangle three times as long as it is wide, pulling the corners to shape it.

6) The butter rolled between the plastic sheets should be large enough to cover about ⅔ of the dough. If necessary, roll it more so it fits. Brush excess flour off the pastry so the butter sticks better. Peel the plastic off the butter and place on the dough, leaving ⅓ of the dough uncovered.

7) There should be a rim left around the butter so the dough will completely enclose it when folded. Fold the butter-free end over the butter and then fold over the other end, with the butter, over that so the dough is folded in three.

Press the edges together to seal the butter in, adjusting and shaping it until you end up with a neat rectangle.

8) Do the first turn: roll the dough gently so the butter does not squeeze out - don't force it. You want to end up with another long rectangle.

9) The butter will be well distributed. Brush off any excess flour and fold the dough in thirds again, manipulating it so it is a neat rectangle. Cover and put in the fridge for at least half an hour, then repeat the turn. There should be a total of three turns, not counting the original one when the butter was incorporated.

A trick used in commercial kitchens is to press a finger into the dough to leave a mark. After the second turn press two fingers in, and after the third, three fingers. That reminds you, and lets other chefs know how many you have done.

After the third turn and rest, or, preferably, the following day, let the dough come to room temperature or it may crack.

10) Butter and flour some baking trays.

11) When the dough has softened a little, roll it out again into a neat rectangle about 4-5mm thick.

12) Work out how you will cut the dough into squares to use all the dough. They should be about 10cm or more square. Put on the baking trays.

13) Chef Pfyl made a thick custard filling with custard powder, milk and a little sugar and left it to set. He sprinkled the top with caster sugar so it would not form a skin. Before using it to fill the pastries, he mixed it with a whisk and put it in a piping bag.

14) For the first shape, pipe a thick line of custard across the square on the diagonal.

15) Pull the other two corners and stick them together with some egg wash above the custard.

16) For the second shape, brush some egg wash in the centre of the pastry and fold each corner in to the centre.

17) Pipe a blob of custard over the join

and push a poached or canned apricot half over the custard.

18) Leave the pastries to rest at room temperature for 20-30 minutes until almost doubled in size. Alternatively you could leave them overnight in the fridge to do a slow rise. When you are ready to cook the Danish pastries, brush them with egg wash and put in a 200degC oven on fanbake.

19) The pastries should take about 15-20 minutes. Before removing from the oven, check the underside is cooked by lifting one with a fish slice. While still hot, brush with apricot glaze.

 

To make egg wash

1) Mix an egg yolk with 1 Tbsp milk.

 

To make an apricot glaze

1) Put about 2 Tbsp of apricot jam, 1 Tbsp of water and a squeeze of lemon juice in a saucepan.

2) Stir and heat gently until it has melted and amalgamated.

3) You may need to strain any large pieces of fruit out.

 

Icing

1) Mix a couple of tablespoons of icing sugar with a little lemon juice to a piping consistency. Make a little piping bag from a triangle of baking paper folded into a cone. Fill with the icing and fold over at the top.

2) Cut a tiny piece off the point to make a thin nozzle and pipe strings of icing across some of the pastries. When the icing and glaze are set, you can also sift a little icing sugar over them.

 


If you would like to request to a particular technique we haven't already shown, please let us know. Write to Cooking 101, Editorial Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 181, Dunedin or email odt.features@odt.co.nz with cooking 101 in the subject line.

To check earlier Cooking 101 columns visit: www.odt.co.nz and search for ''cooking 101''.

More information on cooking from Otago Polytechnic can be found on www.otagocookeryl4.blogspot.com



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