Hi all,

I have been trying for some time now to create a flakey, but tender
Danish. I have pretty much mastered croissant/puff pastry making. So,
in terms of the process, I should have all the required prerequisite
knowledge. I have tried several different recipies, however, everytime
the result has been a hard, crusty danish, which tasted ok but was not
even close to the quality of those one finds in a good bakery (US and
European). How does one create a tender danish. Does this depends on
the handling of the dough, or am I missing a key ingredient?

Thank you very much for your time.

Regards,

Jim

Jim Light wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have been trying for some time now to create a flakey, but tender
> Danish. I have pretty much mastered croissant/puff pastry making. So,
> in terms of the process, I should have all the required prerequisite
> knowledge. I have tried several different recipies, however, everytime
> the result has been a hard, crusty danish, which tasted ok but was not
> even close to the quality of those one finds in a good bakery (US and
> European). How does one create a tender danish. Does this depends on
> the handling of the dough, or am I missing a key ingredient?
>
> Thank you very much for your time.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jim

Post the recipe you're using. The Danish pastry dough I use makes a
very wet and sticky dough when it's first mixed up. I end up having to
use almost a cup additional flour on the work surface to keep the dough
from sticking when I first roll out the dough. After rolling out the
dough, I use a pastry brush to brush away every last bit of flour
that's on the surface of the dough. I place the butter on the dough
and do the first turn, making sure I brush away all excess flour before
folding the dough over. Excess flour on the dough interferes with
proper layer formation I usually do 4 turns and refrigerate the dough
for about an hour between each turn.
I use a small shaker to sprinkle the flour evenly over my work surface.
Each time I get done rolling the dough out I scoop the flour left on
the table back into the shaker and use it again for the next time. In
the end, I actually end up adding very little extra flour to the dough,
probably less than a third of a cup.

Jim Light wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have been trying for some time now to create a flakey, but tender
> Danish. ... How does one create a tender danish.

Jim, I learned to make Danish pastry by using the Time-Life "Cooking of
Scandinavia" books (one picture book, one recipe book) that came out in
the late '60s. You could probably find them at a good used book store.

My Danish girl friend at the time (from Copenhagen) thought I made some
good Wienerbrød, so what I learned from these books must have been
pretty close to the real thing. Good luck!

David