Breakfast Danish!

I love Danish, but had never made homemade Danish, until now. This is SO Worth your efforts  and really not hard to achieve! These were delicious! I’ll never go back!  For the Danish dough, I went to my favorite book for these kind of things, “Baking with Julia”! This book is invaluable to me.

Danish Pastry

From: Baking with Julia

Makes 2 pounds of Dough

Traditionally, Danish pastry, a slightly sweet, very rich yeast dough is made the way croissant dough or its unyeasted cousin, puff pastry, is made.  That is, you make a dough that acts as a wrapper for a block of butter, then you roll and fold the dough several times to create layers. Here, in a quick method, the butter is cut into the dough in the food processor, making it easier and faster to work; the yeast and liquid are mixed into the dough and then the chilled dough is given the traditional rolling and folds. Don’t think your cheating by taking the fast track – this is the way its done these days all over Denmark, where they know great Danish when they taste it.  This is the recipe for the basic dough from which many pastries can be made.

1/4 Cup Warm Water (105 – 115 degrees F.)

2 1/2 tsp. Active Dry Yeast

1/2 Cup Milk, at room Temperature

1 Large Egg, at room temperature

1/4 Cup Sugar

1 tsp. Salt

2 1/2 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour

2 Sticks (8 oz.) Cold Unsalted Butter

Mixing the dough:  Pour the water into a large bowl, sprinkle over the yeast, and  let it soften for a minute.  Add the milk, egg, sugar, and salt and whisk to mix; set aside.

Put the flour in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade.  Cut the butter into 1/4 inch thick slices and drop them onto the flour.  Pulse 8 to 10 times, until the butter is cut into pieces that are about 1/2 inch in diameter.  Don’t over do this – the pieces must not be smaller than 1/2 inch.  Empty the contents of the food processor into the bowl with the yeast and, working with a rubber spatula, very gently turn the mixture over, scraping the bowl as needed, just until the dry ingredients are moistened.  Again, don’t be too energetic – the butter must remain in discrete pieces so that you will produce a flaky pastry, not a bread or cookie dough.

Chilling the dough:  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough overnight (or up to 4 days, if the better suits your schedule).

Rolling and folding:  Lightly flour a work surface (a cool surface, such as marble, is ideal), turn the dough out onto it, and dust lightly with flour.  Using the palm of your hands, pat the dough into a rough square. Then roll it into a square about 16 inches on a side. (A French rolling-pin, one without handles, is the best here.)  Fold the dough into thirds, like a business letter, and turn it so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. (If at any time the dough gets too soft to roll, just cover it with plastic wrap and pop it into the refrigerator for a quick chill.   Roll the dough out again, this time into a long narrow rectangle, about 10 inches wide by 24 inches long.  Fold the rectangle in thirds again, turn it so the  fold is to your left, and roll it into a 20 inch square.  Fold the square in thirds, like a business letter, so that you have a rectangle, turning it so that the closed fold is to your left, and, once more, roll the dough into a long narrow rectangle, 10 inches wide by 24 inches long.  Fold in thirds again, wrap the dough well in plastic, and chill it for at least 30 minutes, or for as long as 2 days.  (Depending on what you plan to do with the dough, you might want to divide it in half now.)  The dough is now ready to be shaped, filled, and baked, following the recipes of your choice.

Storing:  The dough can be kept covered in the refrigerator for 4 days or wrapped airtight and frozen for 1 month; thaw overnight, still wrapped, in the refrigerator.

For the fillings, I used both of the fillings listed below. Both were DELICIOUS!! Try them out.

Danish Almond Filling

1 Cup Blanched Almond

1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar

2 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature

1/2 tsp. Almond Extract

1 Large Egg White, Lightly Beaten

1.  Put almonds, sugar, and butter into food processor.  Process until almonds are finely ground, scraping bowl as necessary.

2.  Add almond extract and 2 Tablespoons of the beaten egg white.  Process until mixed.

3.  Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator until needed. (Up to one week.)  Bring to room temperature before using.

Cheese Filling:

8 oz. Cream Cheese,  Room Temperature

1/3 Cup Sugar

2 Xtra Large Egg Yolks, Room Temperature

2 Tbsp. Ricotta Cheese

1/4 tsp. Salt

1 Tbsp. Grated Lemon Peel

Place cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the  paddle attachment, and cream together on low speed, until smooth.  With the mixer on low, add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest. Mix just until combined.  Don’t whip!  Fill Danish!

Puff Pastry Pastries!

Traditionally, a Mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry, and two layers of crème pâtissière. The top is glazed with icing, in alternating white (icing) and brown (chocolate) strips, and then combed. So, technically, this is not a Mille-feuille. Guess I’ll have to re-do this one! (My husband will love me for it!)

Playing around with Puff Pastry!

Puff Pastry Cases were a delight to make! I find these elegant and easy to make.  Cut Puff Pastry into a 4X4 inch square. Cut 1/2 inch from the sides to make smaller squares surrounded by a 1/2 inch wide border.  Brush the inside square with water. Lift one corner of the outer square and fold it diagonally  so that the corner is directly over the opposite corner of the inner square. Press the corner gently in place.  Repeat with the opposite corner. Press to hold the corner in place.  Press gently all around the square to keep the border in place.  Brush the border and the curled corners with egg wash. Don’t let any drip down the sides. Cut halfway down the inner square all around the inside border. Bake.  Cut around the inside of the prebaked shells and gently pull away the little square on top to use as a lid. Pull out and discard any uncooked dough. Place the filling inside, and place the lid on top. See step by step here. (From: Baking  – James Peterson – if you don’t have this book, I highly recommend it! It’s fantastic and very informative with step by step illustrations thorough out!

Puff Pastry Pin Wheels. I love the looks of Pin Wheels. I just love how they look, so I made some with Puff Pastry!

Roll out 1 puff pastry sheet on lightly floured surface to 16×13-inch rectangle. Trim edges neatly, forming 15×12-inch rectangle. Cut rectangle into twenty 3-inch squares. Using small sharp knife, make 1-inch-long diagonal cut in all 4 corners of 1 square, cutting toward center (do not cut through center). To form pinwheels, fold every other point of puff pastry toward center of square, pressing to adhere. Repeat with remaining puff pastry squares.

(I made slightly larger squares, making them 4X4 inch squares. Follow the above directions)

Brush pinwheels lightly with egg glaze.

I had some pie crust that needed to be used up too, so I made some mini fruit tarts too to use it up! Delicious! Have fun & be creative! Even if they don’t come out exactly as you wanted, they still taste great!   Make a batch of homemade Puff pastry, play with some and freeze some! Recipe is here if you need a recipe! You can find the pastry cream recipe in the same post!

Cream Puffs!

Baked, Crispy, Hallow Shells.  Sweet, Creamy, smooth,  rich & thick  Vanilla and Chocolate Pastry Cream!  And lightly sweetened billowy clouds of whipped cream! Yumm!! Am I making you crave Cream Puffs?  Mark (Mr. Fire) has been requesting these for a while.  He likes pastry type desserts. Cream Horns, Puff Pastry, Pies, Cream Puffs, Eclairs, you get the idea.  Delectable Dessert!  And that it was!

Choux Pastry

200 grams Milk

80 grams Butter, cut into pieces

140 grams Flour

200 grams Eggs (4-5) I used 5

2 tsp. Sugar

1/2 tsp. Salt

1. Preheat oven 400 degrees F.

2. Cut butter into small cubes (This will make melting faster)

3. Sift the flour.

4. In a medium saucepan combine milk, butter, sugar and salt. Bring to a rolling boil. Add all of the flour all at once. Turn heat to low and cook stirring constantly until dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the pan. This is an important step, as it dries the mixture out before adding the eggs.  Let mixture cool slightly in the bowl of a stand mixer running on low for 2-3 minutes.  Beat the eggs together in a bowl until well mixed. Adding a little bit of egg at a time, beat the mixture until the egg is completely incorporated before adding more.  Please don’t rush this step. The choux pastry dough is ready when it pulls away from the side of the bowl. This could take up to 10 minutes.   Spoon dough into a pastry bag, and pipe puffs onto a silpat lined baking sheet. Mist dough lightly with a spray bottle of water.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. When they get brown, turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes more.  Puffs should be golden brown, crisp and dry and sound hallow inside. Cut the top of a puff if needed to ensure they are hallow and cooked through. (It’s ok to have a little bit of dough moist, you can pull the dough out of the inside.) Let cool completely. Store unfilled Cream Puff shells in an air tight container or freeze them until needed. Fill with pastry cream or/and whipped cream and  powdered sugar.

I like the recipe for Pastry Cream from Joy of Baking.  I made two batches of pastry cream one vanilla and one chocolate by adding 2 oz. of chopped bittersweet chocolate.

Whipped Cream

1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

1/4 cup Sugar (You can use powdered sugar, but you will need to sift it first.)

1/2 tsp. Vanilla

In a medium bowl,  beat whipped cream until semi stiff. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until stiff peaks form. Do not over beat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Apple Turnovers!

Apples are all American Comfort food, they are so versatile in the fact that they can be used in so many different ways. This is my Apple Turnover Recipe. I like making my own puff pastry, but you can buy store bought with just (well, almost) as favorable results. If you need a puff pastry recipe I have one here.   Increase the filling ingredients and make a full size apple pie with this filling too. Yum!

Delectable Dessert’s  Apple Turnovers

Puff Pastry
2 Apples, peeled, cored & diced
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
1 Tbsp. Cinnamon (I like Cinnamon)
Dash of Nutmeg
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar (Packed)
Pinch of Salt
2 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter
2 Tbsp. Flour
3 Tbsp. Kraft Caramel Bits
3 Tbsp, Heath Milk Choc. Toffee Bits
5 Tbsp. Golden Raisins

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel, core and dice 2 apples. In a mixing bowl, mix the apples with the lemon juice until well coated. Add brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and pinch of salt; stir well. In a skillet, melt 2 Tbsp. of butter; add the apple mixture and saute’ until apples are tender and release their juices. Sprinkle the flour over the apples and stir until mixture thickens. Remove from heat.  In a mixing bowl, mix the apple mixture with the Caramel bits, toffe bits and raisins. Mix well.  Roll puff pastry to 1/8 inch. Cut pastry into squares about 4X4 (Or whatever size you want). Spoon some filling into the center of your square and fold over to make a triangle. Seal edges. Place pastries on a non-stick cookie sheet (or Silpat). Brush with milk and coarse sanding sugar, and bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned.   Makes 4-8 turnovers, depending on size.

Cream Horns!

Making good use of the puff pastry that I made the other day, we decided on Cream Horns.  I used sweetened whipped cream for my filling,  and I used crushed up oreo cookies for the sprinkling, and a shake of Confectioner’s Sugar. I’ve also added a Cream Filling Recipe (below) and a pastry cream to use if you want. (It is very good.) Use your imagination and have fun!!

Michel Richard’s Puff Pastry Dough
From “Baking with Julia” by Dorie Greenspan
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1 1/4 cups Cake Flour
1 Tablespoons Salt
1 1/4 cups Ice Water
1 lb Very Cold Unsalted Butter

Mixing the Dough: Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot
hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them. Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. (Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh.) Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small
sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it
with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that’s about 1″ thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporating the Butter:
Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10″ square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with “ears,” or flaps. Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don’t just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8″ square. To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is
warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue
at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.
Making the Turns:
Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the
dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24″ (don’t worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24″, everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is
particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to
get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!). With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in
thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn. Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24″ and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.
Chilling the Dough:
If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you
refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you’ve completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns. The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it.

Your not going to need this much Puff Pastry for your Cream Horns (I made 12) I used a third of puff pastry, but I encourage you to make the whole recipe and freeze the puff pastry for future use.

Whipped Topping
1/2 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
1/4-1/3 Cup Powdered Sugar (or to taste)
1 tsp. Vanilla or Almond Extract

Combine all ingredients in a glass or stainless steel bowl and whip until stiff peaks form.

OR make a pastry cream and lighten it with whipped cream

Pastry Cream

1 1/4 Cups Milk
1/2 Vanilla Bean, Split lengthwise
3 Large Egg Yolks
1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/8 Cup All Purpose Flour
Scant 3 Tablespoons Cornstarch
3/4 Tablespoon Liqueur (Grand Marnier, Brandy, Kirsch, etc.) Optional

In a medium sized stainless steel bowl, mix the sugar and egg yolks together with a wooden spoon. (Never let the mixture set too long, or you will get pieces of egg forming). Sift the flour and cornstarch together and then add to the egg mixture, mixing until you get a smooth paste. Set aside.
Meanwhile, in a sauce pan combine the milk and the vanilla bean on medium heat until boiling. (The milk will foam up to the top of the pan, so watch carefully). Remove from heat and add slowly to egg mixture, whisking constantly to prevent curdling. (If you get a few pieces of egg (curdling) in the mixture, pour through a strainer.) Remove vanilla bean, scrape out seeds, and add the seeds to the egg mixture. (The vanilla bean can be dried and placed in your sugar bowl to give the sugar a vanilla flavor. This sugar can than be used in baking where you would like a vanilla flavored sugar, i.e. cookies, pies, cake, etc.) Place the egg mixture back into a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat until boiling, whisking constantly. When it boils, whisk mixture constantly for another 30-60 seconds until it becomes very thick and hard to stir. Remove from heat and immediately add the liqueur (if using). Pour into a clean bowl and immediately cover with plastic wrap (directly onto the cream) to prevent a skin from forming. Cool completely. If your not using right away, refrigerate until needed up to 3 days. Beat before using to rid of any lumps that may have formed.

Cream Filling:
1 Cup Whole Milk
5 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour
1 1/4 Cups Granulated Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 Cup Shortening
1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, room temp.
1 tsp. Vanilla

Whisk together flour and milk in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly,  until mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. In a medium bowl, beat flour mixture until light and fluffy. Add remaining ingredients, one at a time, mixing well after each. Mixture should look like whipped cream and should not have any grittiness to it. Use to fill your cream horns.

To make the Cream Horns:

Roll puff pasty out to about 1/8th of an inch. Cut into 1/2 inch strips and wrap the pastry around the horn molds (or ice cream cones covered with foil), Keep wrapping until you get to the bottom of the cone or the top (which ever way you started). Brush pastry with a little milk and roll or sprinkle with coarse sugar if desired. Place in a hot 400 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until browned.