"Pastry, thats what I want!"

Apple Danish

On Friday evening my GF and I were driving the outer-belt and she said, "I want a pastry!" and I racked my brain to think where can you get a Danish at 9pm?

You know where? No where!

I felt inspired.

And I had just made a yeasty cake, so I knew I had the ingredients to make something and of course the book on the shelf! I have a few pastry cook books on my shelf. The Complete Book of Pastry Sweet & Savory by Bernard Clayton Jr. Is a favorite book of mine.




Braid filled with cheese, not yet proofed.

Once upon a time I was a pastry baker for a living. Making little pastry snails is one of my favorite things to do, though I do it rarely.

But I thought I'd make a braid too.



Cheese braid baked and looking good!

The braid is filled with Hungarian Cheese filling and topped with sugar. The snails are filled with cinnamon sugar and topped with apple filling. Both were brushed with a red currant glaze.

The recipe:
D'Angleterre Classic Danish Dough

2 packets dry yeast
1.5 cup water
.5 cup dry milk
.33 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
5.5 cup flour
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 oz butter

.75 pound butter
.25 cup flour

In a mixer bowl add yeast, water and milk. Mix, let sit 5 minutes.

Add sugar, salt and vanilla. Stir briefly. Add three cups of flour, mix. Add an egg and a half cup of flour. Do that 3 times. With the last egg add butter and the last half cup of flour.

Turn out of the bowl and knead a few times. Put into a bag and chill an hour.

Mix the flour into the butter, roll into a sheet and chill.

Roll the dough and fold in the dough. I use the two-thirds technique. There are plenty of videos to show you how to laminate the dough.

The next day I cut the dough, filled it, egg washed, proofed and baked. Sorry, I'm not all about the baking details. Again there are such fantastic resources out there that can describe it better than I can.




Cute snails waiting to proof.

 



The pastry was definitely delicious and certainly fun. Now I need to find people to eat these babies.

 

So the question is what motivates you to bake?