Most americans knows what a danish pastry is. Going in to pastry shops in America, you'll find a cheese danish. But even though Danes like their cheese, they would never, as in Never Ever Ever put cheese in a pastry, or in a wienerbrød, as they are called in Denmark. Wienerbrød translated is a bread from Vienna. That style of pastry originates from Austria, and became very popular in Denmark. Danes like their sweets.
The Danish pastry is a laminated yeast dough much like the French croissant. There are many ways to make this lamination. The amount of layers are different from country to country and from baker to baker. You get the flaky layers by folding sheets of dough with butter.
There are different kinds of folding.
Letter fold: Dough folded in thirds, like you would do a letter going into an envelope. (I did that for this recipe.)
1. Turn: makes 3 layers of butter
2. Turn: makes 9 layers of butter
3. Turn: makes 27 layers of butter.
Book fold: Dough folded to the middle and folded again on the middle like a book. This makes 4 layers per fold or turn as they are called.
1. Turn: makes 4 layers of butter
2. Turn: makes 16 layers of butter
3. Turn: makes 64 layers of butter
Some people claim that any more layers than 3 turns using a letter fold, will make the dough like a brioche instead of providing the flaky layers. The 3 turns makes 27 layers. You can mix the folding methods to get the amount of layer you want.
I'm sure that it is possible to make the laminating with more layers. Even in a normal kitchen without special equipment. Next time I'll be making a book fold in the second turn, making it for 36 layers.
Makes 16 pastries. Recipe adapted from Kvalimad.dk.
Ingredients:
Dough:
- 375 g all-purpose flour
- 200 ml milk
- 25 g live yeast or 2 teaspoons dry yeast
- 45 g sugar
- 50 g butter, salted and soft
- 1 egg
Butter block:
- 350 g butter, cold (use a european style butter, it contains less water, than the american butter)
- all-purpose flour for dusting
Remonce:
- 50 g butter
- 50 g sugar
- 50 g marzipan
Filling:
- vanilla custard
- raspberry jam
- sugar
- chopped almonds
- Icing (confectionary sugar and water, made into a thick paste)
Directions:
Dough:
Heat the milk to lukewarm (99℉/37℃). Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk. Add the sugar. If using dry yeast, let the yeast wake up for about 5-10 minutes, until creating a foam on top. Incorporate the egg.
Mix in half of the flour, forming a sticky dough. Mix in the softened butter. Finally mix in the rest of the flour and knead the dough until you have at shiny, slightly sticky and elastic dough, for about 3-5 minutes.
Place the dough on a very lightly floured surface. Using a bench scraper and one hand, work the dough into a round. The tension will build as the dough achieves to the surface as you rotate it.
Place the dough back in the bowl and let it rise until doubled in size, for about 60 minutes.
Butter block:
Place the cold butter on a well floured surface. With your palms press the butter a little flat. Using a rolling pin pound on the butter to flatten it. Fold the butte into its self, and keep pounding and folding until the butter has the same consistency as the dough. You want to end up with a 15x15 cm / 6x6 inch square of soft but still cold butter. If the butter is too warm or too hard, it will be hard to roll it out in the dough, and it might make holes in the dough, instead of the lamination.
Laminating:
