My friend Julia and I attended a class recently at Baking Arts in San Mateo to learn how to make Danish Pastries. I'm no stranger to laminated dough, having made croissants, puff pastry and kouign amman before, but never have I made Danish which is made from an enriched dough with eggs. I was happy to learn something new!
Prior to class the instructor had pre-made and shaped a batch of the dough so that we could see what it would look like before going in to the oven. Then he showed us how to finish off the baked pastries by brushing on sugar syrup and then piping a flourish of icing. During the class we students made the dough from scratch and laminated it with a block of cold butter. We then took the thrice-turned dough home to finish off later.
Because I was anxious to see how my Danish would turn out I woke up really early this morning to finish the recipe. This dough is super easy to roll out which makes it nice to handle when it's time to cut your shapes. I made a few pinwheels and with the rest of the dough turned them in to snails.
The key with Danish is that the finished pastry is brushed with a sugar syrup that gives them that beautiful shine and gloss. Now I was definitely skeptical when the instructor repeatedly told us to be really generous when brushing on the syrup. I assumed it would make the finished pastry too sweet, but I was wrong. Even with a double coating of the syrup the Danish was just right. I'll undoubtedly be making this recipe again...next time I think I'll try a savory version.
