Danish recipe

Finally, the promised Danish recipe. The rolling out process is a little difficult to describe, so I’ve taken step-by-step photos to illustrate. Because of the photos and an extra recipe for the filling, this post is very long, making it seem complicated. It’s really not complicated at all, though it does take a long time from start to finish. But since much of the time is spent waiting for the dough to rest, you can get on with other things while you’re making the dough and assembling the danishes. And I promise, the feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment when you finally pull a tray of golden steaming danishes out of the oven, along with the 100% fresh, soft-crunchy pastries themselves, is ample reward for the time and effort involved.

Making the dough

Danish dough

Makes enough dough for 12 large pastries. I made 10 enormous ones because I’m greedy.

I’ve written this recipe to be made using a stand mixer. You can definitely mix and knead the dough by hand, it will just take a bit more time and effort.

7g instant yeast

½ cup milk, warmed to body temperature

¾ cup water, warmed to body temperature, plus more if needed

1 egg yolk

4 cups cake flour

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground cardamom (optional)

225g cold butter

More flour, for dusting and rolling

Place the yeast, water and milk in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, and mix on medium speed until the yeast is dissolved. Add the egg yolk and mix to incorporate.

Sift the flour, sugar, salt and cardamom together and add to the yeast mixture. Mix on medium until just combined. I find that I usually need to add a little more water at this point to make the dough come together into a ball – just a little though, no more than ¼ cup. Once the dough has come together and formed a ball, increase the speed to high and leave for two to five minutes. The dough should be perfectly soft and smooth, with very little stickiness. Remove from the bowl, cover in clingwrap and refrigerate for fifteen minutes.

While the dough rests, dust a cool kitchen surface with flour and place the butter on the surface. Dust the butter with flour, too. Like so:

Use a rolling pin to beat the butter flat, and roll it out into a square. Squish together any bits of butter that break off.

Now push the butter aside and dust the surface with flour again. Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on the floured surface, dusting the dough with flour too.

Roll out to at least twice the size of the square of butter.

Dust the flour off the dough with a brush once it's rolled out

Place the butter in the centre of the rolled out dough.

Fold the dough over the butter like this:

Press the folded edges down to seal them, and then roll the dough out.

Now fold the dough like this:

Make sure to dust the flour off each folded bit as you fold

As you can see, some of the butter broke through my dough in the bottom right corner. This isn’t meant to happen, but as long as all the butter doesn’t break through and melt everywhere, it won’t affect your final product at all. Wrap the folded dough in clingwrap and refrigerate for 25 minutes.

Now, you repeat the rolling, folding and resting process described above three more times. So that means, you’re going to remove the dough from the fridge, roll it, and fold it; and again; and again. Every time you remove the dough from the fridge to roll again, make sure your surface is well-dusted with flour, and also – this is important! – lay the dough down before rolling so that the “open” seam side is facing your body. Like this:

And...
Roll, fold, rest.

Roll, fold, rest.

Roll, fold, rest.

And that’s it! Your dough is now ready to be rolled out one final time and turned into danishes.

Making the fillings

Now, the fillings. I made two kinds of danishes – custard and sour cherry, and chocolate. For the chocolate danish, I just used squares of plain dark chocolate. It was obviously good – when is buttery pastry combined with chocolate not going to be good? – but next time I’d use a thick, pipe-able ganache instead.

For the custard and sour cherry danishes, I cheated a little. I made my own custard, but bought jarred sour cherries in syrup and just thickened the syrup with a little cornstarch. You could use any fresh, frozen, or jarred berries or fruit to make a filling, or just use fresh berries. In my opinion, slightly tart berries or fruit work best (like the sour cherries used here, or cranberries, Cape gooseberries, plums, and so on).

Custard filling

Otherwise known as crème patisserie or pastry cream. Recipe makes about two cups.

1 ½ c milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

1 tsp salt

Place the milk and vanilla extract in a medium pot over medium heat and warm to body temperature.

Meanwhile, in a medium-sized bowl, whish the egg yolks and sugar to combine, then add the flour and salt and whisk till smooth.

Add the warmed milk to the egg yolk mixture little by little, whisking all the while until all the milk has been added and the mixture is completely smooth. Return the mixture to the pot, place over medium heat. Stir the mixture constantly with a wire whisk as it warms up and thickens. When the custard becomes thick enough to be piped, continue whisking for another minute or two to make sure the raw flour taste has cooked out completely.

Remove from heat and cool, covered.

Assembling the danishes:

There are many different fillings you could use, as well as many different shapes you could fold your dough into. As mentioned, I chose a custard and sour cherry filling, and a dark chocolate filling, and demonstrate four different shapes.

First, roll the dough out to a thickness of 2mm to 5mm, and cut into equally sized squares or rectangles. The thickness of your dough and the size of your squares/rectangles depends on how many danishes you want to make, and how big or small they're going to be.

Trim the dough's edges with a sharp knife. This is important - sharply cut trimmed edges mean that the pastry will puff well in the oven.

Cut into squares or rectangles.

Now you can shape and fill.

First shape – my favourite, the pinwheel:

Then you pipe some custard onto the centre of the square, top the custard with some cherries and syrup, and fold like this:

Second shape – no idea what it’s called, let me know if you do:

Again, pipe custard onto the centre and top with cherries, and fold:

It looks messy (because it is messy) but it bakes up pretty

Third shape – again, no idea what the name is for this shape - you pipe the custard and place the cherries onto the uncut dough, and fold like this:

This one didn't hold up well in the oven, so not my favourite shape

Fourth shape – not really a shape at all, just an easy way out - roll the already cut dough a little more to make a longer rectangle:

And fold over, sealing the edges with a little beaten egg:

Now you're ready for the final step, baking.

Baking the danishes:

1 egg, beaten with some water

¼ cup smooth apricot jam

¼ cup water

Once you’ve filled and shaped the danishes, they have to rise for 30 to 40 minutes. Place the pastries on a baking slide and leave them in a warm, but not hot, place.

While they rise, preheat the oven to 200 C. Place the apricot jam and water in a small pot and bring to the boil, whisking to combine. Let the mixture boil for a few minutes to thicken a little. Remove from the heat.

The pastries are fully risen when the dough looks soft and puffy. Brush them with the egg and water mixture, and slide them into the hot oven. After ten minutes, turn the heat down to 175 C and bake for a further 8 – 10 minutes (check them after 8 minutes, and if they’re not deeply golden, leave them for a couple more minutes).

Remove from the oven and slide onto a wire cooling rack. Once the danishes have cooled for about ten minutes, brush them with the jam mixture – brush the pastry as well as the filling, so that it all looks shiny.

Giant danishes

And you’re done!

Eat me

An evening at the Foodbarn

When I was a student at chef school for a year, we had two big practical exams, one halfway through the year and the other at the end of the year. For these exams, we had to cook a three course meal including specific elements that showed off the techniques we’d learnt. And we had to cook it all perfectly and present the food beautifully while sticking to a time limit. I can’t remember what the time limit was – three hours, maybe? It was nerve-wracking. They were the two scariest exams of my life, apart from, possibly, my driver’s licence test.

   

To make myself feel a little more confident going into these exams, I cheated. Sort of. We were meant to design entirely original menus and accompanying recipes, and our overall exam mark included a mark for the menu design. The problem was that, surrounded by some brilliant fellow students, I didn’t trust myself to come up with a decent menu. So I decided to "get inspiration" for recipes and dishes from cookbooks.

As a poor student, though, I couldn’t afford cookbooks, so I’d gather up a pile of the latest and most inspiring ones at my local book store, hide behind a bookshelf with my stash, and go through them slowly and carefully. Hidden under the cookbooks on my lap would be a small notebook and pen, where I would surreptitiously jot down ideas, names of dishes, and even entire recipes. This was of course all very much against the rules, since I was using the books but not buying them. Luckily I only got caught and kicked out once.

Despite all the many cookbooks I copied from, there was only one whose ideas and recipes I eventually used for my exams: Feast, by Franck Dangereux. Back then he was the head chef at La Colombe, making what I thought looked and sounded like some of the most beautiful, yet simple food imaginable. So that’s what I attempted for my exams.

Nowadays, Franck Dangereux owns the Foodbarn in Noordhoek, a much more relaxed space than La Colombe, but still with his signature beautiful, simple food. On Wednesday evening, I was lucky enough to be taken by Andrew (so thoughtful!) to finally see him in action, doing a cooking demonstration of three different dishes before we were served a three course dinner with wine pairings. He was just as lovely and entertaining as I’d hoped, and I came away from the demonstration having learnt lots.

Franck Dangereux putting the finishing touches
on the dishes he demonstrated

Cooking, talking, and generally being charming

And then, dinner. All I can say is that I managed with some effort not to lick my plate after every course. 

We both ordered this starter: cauliflower and basil mousseline ,
yellow fin tuna sashimi, aioli, soy sauce, and pickled ginger.
I couldn't wait for the camera before digging in.

Andrew's main course: candied pipperade galette, grilled kingklip,
and thyme butter

My main course: slow roasted pork belly, almond mash, wilted spinach,
balsamic jus, and marjoram swirl

My dessert: banana crepe with rum, treacle ice cream,
and coconut sauce

Andrew's dessert: trio of homemade ice creams - hazelnut, horlicks,
and white chocolate

Recently produced by munch

White chocolate and strawberry cake

Classic vanilla cupcakes with dark chocolate ganache
and white chocolate ganache

Classic vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream

Roast courgette and red pepper tartlets with goat's milk feta

Baby butter chicken bunny chows with yoghurt and coriander

Mini beef burgers with aged cheddar, smoky, spicy tomato relish, and rocket

Mini grilled hake tacos with pineapple and avocado salsa

Munch recipe on MochoLoco

The lovely Vicky has posted a Munch recipe on her blog today - go and have a look here. And then browse through the rest of the posts and have a look at all the beautiful things Vicky makes - I might have to get one of those beautiful pillows!

Danishes

I know I've been very quiet for a while, and I don't have time for a long story or full recipe today. But in a few days' time, I'll have the recipe for these danishes ready.

I hadn't made danishes for a very long time, so when I had to make some for an order, I thought it would be such a drama to make. It definitely is time-consuming, but in the end, no drama at all! So once I've taken some good pictures of the process, I'll post the recipe. In the meantime, here are some photos.

Oh, and here's what you can do with the leftover dough scraps:

To be continued soon!