Danishes, Part 3
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I suppose I've drawn this out long enough. Although this'll be one heckuva post. I told you that sweet treats like these are not easy. And they shouldn't be.
Or as I learned to say for all those years I lived in New York City: "Nor should they be." What's with the floating nor? Nor should you worry. Doesn't there have to be a neither?
Anyway, here's the conclusion of our danish saga. (As our hero, Svend, son of Mogens, son of Mikkel, finally returns from his years before the mast, his sturdy wife is pleased to meet him. In her ecstatic joy, she almost smiles; but still she refuses to kiss him. It would be too demonstrative. She shakes his hand. He tells her his tale: of finding a city with deep canyons between tall buildings full of people working, eating bagels. He was not able to conquer them. But he learned to fit in. "Have you lessons for the children?" his sturdy wife asks. "Nor should I do that again," he says.)
We're now going to make a modified, yeast-raised puff pastry dough. This is serious baking. You're not an amateur if you try this.
First, strap an instant-read meat thermometer to the inside of a small saucepan and pour in 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk. Set the pot over low heat and warm the milk just until it's between 100F and 105F.
Pour it into a large bowl--or the bowl of a stand mixer if you want to use it to bring the dough together. Add 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast. Set that mixture aside for 5 minutes until the yeast is bubbling and frothy. If the mixture doesn't get that yeasty foam, throw the whole thing out and start again. Either the yeast was bad or the milk was not at the right temperature. Don't go forward until your yeast froths, Svend.
Meanwhile, beat 1 large egg in a small bowl or custard cup until creamy and uniform. Set it aside.
When the yeast and milk have proofed properly, add 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour and 2 1/2 tablespoons of that beaten egg. Either stir this into the milk mixture or turn on the beater of a stand mixer and let it mix the flour in. Note: no cake flour here. We want glutens. We're making puff pastry, Ole.
Dust a clean, dry work surface with flour and turn the dough out onto it. Gently knead it for a couple of minutes, not as long as you would bread, but just until you get a smooth dough. You actually don't want to stretch the glutens too much. We're not really making bread. We're not letting it rise. We're actually just using the yeast as a low-grade leavening. The real leavening is to come, Anders. (OK, OK. I promise: no more danish saga jokes. It comes of living too long in Wisconsin. Anything Scandinavian becomes funny. It would happen to you. I promise.)
Once you've got the dough cohering into a rather silky mass, gather it into a ball and set it under a clean kitchen towel at room temperature for 10 minutes. Place the remainder of that beaten egg in the fridge for later in the recipe.
Meanwhile, clean and dry your work surface--and lightly dust it with more flour.
Turn the dough out onto it, smoosh the dough flat a bit, dust it with flour, and roll it into a 14 x 20-inch rectangle. Be fairly precise, although there's no reason to get all OCD over it at this point. As you'll see, there's plenty of rolling ahead. And plenty of chances to get OCD.
Take the chilled butter dough out of the fridge. (This is the stuff you made in part one, here.) Peel off one sheet of the wax or parchment paper. Turn the butter dough still attached to a sheet of wax or parchment paper over and set it down paper side up on the rolled-out yeast dough so that one 12-inch side of the butter dough is parallel, centered, and 1 inch away from the 14-inch side of the yeast dough. Carefully peel off the paper. Now take the part of the yeast dough without any butter dough on it and fold it over the butter dough, thereby encasing it. Seal all the edges, enclosing the butter dough inside the yeast dough.
Now for the fun part. Dust that sealed package with a little--as little as possible--flour. Now roll it back to a 14 x 20-inch rectangle, thereby smooshing the butter dough inside the yeast dough. And do it the hard way. In other words, turn the dough and make the former short side, the 14-inch side, the now long side, the 20-inch side. If you see any tearing, fix these holes with a dab of water on the dough and roll them shut with a dusting of flour. But again, not too much flour.
Take one short side of this rectangle and pull it up and over the dough until you reach the two-thirds point of the sheet. Now take the still exposed third of the dough on the other end and fold it up and over the top, thereby creating three layers, as it were.
Dust this lightly with flour and roll it back to a 14 x 20-inch rectangle. Fold it back into thirds. And do this trick of rolling out and folding into thirds three more times. Yep, three more. And if possible, reposition the dough each time so that the long edge is not always the long edge. Sheesh! This is the leavening, the air and fat trapped in successive layers in the dough. And THIS is why pastry chefs are an irritable lot. Well, this and the lack of respect from the chef de cuisine.
After you've done all this rolling out--and the dough will begin to get soft and fragile by the end--fold the whole thing into thirds one more time, put it on a baking sheet, cover it loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and put it in the fridge for 1 hour.
Before you begin this last step, set the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400F. Also stir 1 1/2 tablespoons water into that remaining beaten egg, from way earlier in the recipe. And line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
Clean and dry your work surface; dust it lightly with flour. Take the three-fold dough off the baking sheet and set it on the work surface. Cut it the short way into three equal pieces. Roll each of these into a 6 x 8-inch rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick. No need to get obsessive.
Why? Because we're going to trim them. Trim each of these three squares into a 5 x 7 1/2-inch rectangle. You'll notice Bruce uses a pizza roller to get the job done. But be accurate. Because once you have the three trimmed rectangles, cut them into six even pieces. Make one cut parallel to the 7 1/2-inch sides, cutting the rectangle in half the long way. Don't separate the pieces yet. Now make two cuts parallel to the 5-inch sides, cutting it into thirds the short way. Separate these cuts--they're six perfect squares, each 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches.
(Can you believe this recipe is still going on? Has anyone even read this far? Wave to me. I'm right here.)
Set a heaping tablespoon of the prepared filling (made here) in the center of each of those squares. I really like the chèvre filling: so rich and decadent. But there's something lovely and summery about the almond version. (Bruce says it's better for serving at a bridge game. But who eats danishes in the afternoon or evening? He claims everyone does. My stern Protestant ancestors would disagree. Eating danishes after 11:00 a.m. is a sign of rank indolence.)
Fold the pastries closed. You can either bring the four corners up to meet in the middle, pressing them closed. Or you can make little tubes, bringing two opposite corners together over the filling. In either case, you'll want to use that egg-and-water wash to help the dough seal closed. And you'll want to brush the whole thing with the wash so that it browns nicely in the oven.
Set all the pastries on the prepared baking sheet, cover them with a clean kitchen towel (good grief, how many is one supposed to have, dear Bruce?), and set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes.
At long last, put the baking sheet with the pastries in the oven and bake until they're puffed and lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Cool them on the baking sheet for 5 minutes or so, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. They can be kept in a sealed plastic container at room temperature for 24 hours or frozen in zip-closed plastic bags for up to 2 months.
Now that's a treat. And a saga to make it!
Reader Comments (1)
Good grief, you made a laminated dough? This is serious stuff guys, and truly worthy of the epic reading. It was even worth wading through the Scandinavian jokes. By the way, all the heroes are Svend and Anders (properly pronounced "Undesh", by the way, I have a Swedish friend), and all the women in the tale are merely referred to as "sturdy"?? :)
I would learn to play bridge if Bruce's danishes were on offer, I would, II would... ;-)