Cheese Danish Recipe

We’ve all seen the chilly, wan Danishes sitting behind the bakery case or forgotten about in a pile of breakfast pastries in some convention room. Pale, stodgy, and cloying, their most tasty high quality is that they’re going to go down simpler than the stale croissants subsequent to them. It is not a brand new drawback—late meals author Mimi Sheraton complained concerning the state of the Danish again in 1977. She wrote within the New York Times that if Denmark ever broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S., it’d possible be due to our misuse of the phrase Danish “to explain the leaden, oily, artificially yellow and cloyingly candy muffins we discover in luncheonettes… In comparison with the yeasty, buttery, flaky and delicate pastries that Danes know as Vienna bread—wienerbrod—the imposters we produce quantity to a nationwide insult.”

She wasn’t improper then, and, sadly, her feedback nonetheless ring true. So whereas it might be a labor of affection to make your personal Danishes from scratch, it’s value taking the time to do it proper. Made with a yeasted dough that’s layered with butter, the pastry is one thing of a cross between a brioche and a croissant. An amazing Danish needs to be tender, flaky, and properly browned, with a balanced filling of cream cheese, jammy fruit, or pastry cream. These Danishes are wealthy with butter and full of candy, tangy cream cheese—and will very properly persuade you that the one ones value consuming are heat, freshly baked ones.

As with so many origin tales of widespread meals, the supposed start of the cheese Danish sounds a bit of too cute to be true. In accordance with Jan M. Olsen, who dug into the Danish’s beginnings for the Los Angeles Times in 1993, the pastry was by chance created by a baker named Claudius Gelee, who apparently (and oh, so conveniently!) forgot so as to add butter to his dough. In an try to hide his mistake, Gelee started “folding lumps of [butter] into the dough.” A lot to Gelee and his colleagues’ shock, the pastry turned out to be a hit—what Olsen describes as “the lightest dough ever seen in France.” Quickly after, Gelee opened his personal cafe in Paris and Florence, and someplace alongside the best way, Italian bakers introduced the pastry to Austria. 

It wasn’t till the late nineteenth century, in keeping with Sandra J. Weber within the New York Times, that the pastry arrived in Denmark when Danish bakers went on strike. In determined want of bakers, the nation sought alternative employees from Vienna, who introduced with them the wienerbrod so beloved in Denmark at present. “By the point the strike was settled,” Weber famous, “Danes had acquired a ardour and aptitude for the wealthy, mild pastries.”

Getting Danish Dough Proper

Historically, Danishes are made with a yeasted, laminated dough enriched with sugar and eggs. Whereas Danishes bear the same resemblance to puff pastry and croissants, the doughs all differ barely from each other. Puff pastry is made up of flour, water, and salt; croissant dough consists of flour, sugar, yeast, milk, and salt; and Danish dough is actually croissant dough that’s been additional enriched with eggs. After the doughs are blended, they’re then laminated—rolled and folded over themselves a number of occasions—with a relaxing butter block. Because the dough bakes, the butter between the layers melts and creates pockets of steam, lifting the pastry and creating crisp, flaky layers.

Now, making a laminated dough from begin to end is a time-consuming, labor-intensive course of that strikes concern within the hearts of even probably the most skilled bakers and pastry cooks. Fortunately for us, there’s a shortcut we will take that may nonetheless lead to a wealthy, buttery dough. As an alternative of laminating our dough with a butter block, we’re going to take a cue from tough puff pastry (or blitz puff pastry) by incorporating items of butter into the dough, then folding the dough over itself 3 times to create a complete of 27 layers.

Find out how to Fold Your Dough Utilizing the Letter Fold Technique

The easiest way to fold the dough is with what’s generally known as the letter fold methodology. To make a letter fold, you first roll your dough out right into a rectangle—on this recipe that’s an 18- by 9-inch rectangle—and convey the precise third of the dough over the middle, then fold the left third on high to create a smaller rectangle. The dough is then chilled in order that the butter can agency up, after which folded in the identical means a second time. The entire course of is repeated as soon as extra for a complete of three letter folds.

Every letter fold creates exponentially extra layers; by the point you’ve accomplished three folds, you’ll have a complete of 27 layers. (The primary fold ends in three layers; the second fold in 9; and the third fold in 27.) Although we aren’t laminating with a butter block, folding our butter-enriched dough will nonetheless create the flaky layers we wish in a Danish.

Controlling Gluten Improvement

Every time we roll out our dough, we’re creating gluten, a community of protein molecules referred to as glutenin and gliadin which might be answerable for the springy, chewy texture in bread, pizza, and noodles. (You’ll be able to learn extra about that here.) Whereas we do need some gluten improvement to supply construction for our pastry, we don’t need to develop a lot gluten that our Danishes turn out to be powerful and rubbery.

It is a little bit of a balancing act, as fat like butter and eggs act as a tenderizer in dough by coating the proteins and stopping them from bonding as simply to one another. Since fat scale back gluten improvement, and since Danish dough is kind of ample with fats, we have to flip to a higher-protein flour (i.e., one which types gluten extra readily) like bread flour to compensate. What additionally helps restrict extreme gluten improvement is resting the dough between folds, which, along with conserving our dough and butter chilly, helps gluten chill out. The results of this gluten  and fats balancing act is a dough that’s tender but steady, capable of maintain the high-moisture cheese filling with out collapsing below it.

Utilizing European-Type Butter

This recipe requires European-style butter, which has the next share of butterfat (usually 82-to-85%) and lends the pastries a richer taste. “These butters,” writes Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking, “include 10-20% much less water, which might be a bonus when making flaky pastries.” Is it essential to make use of European-style butter? No. However since a lot of the pastry’s taste comes from the amount and high quality of butter used, it’s value contemplating utilizing a higher-quality European-style butter, which can be typically cultured and thus extra full-flavored.

Should you can’t discover European-style butter, don’t fret—it might be some comfort to know that American and Canadian butters are required to have a minimal of 80% butterfat, so for those who’re selecting between a butter with 80% butterfat and one other with 82% butterfat, it’s extremely unlikely it’s going to make or break the recipe.

Making a Balanced Cream Cheese Filling

What units a very excellent Danish aside from a mediocre one isn’t simply the dough—it’s additionally the filling. It could be tempting to beat cream cheese along with an ungodly quantity of sugar and an egg yolk, however taking the time to make just a few low-effort additions can imply the distinction between a spectacular pastry and a subpar one; right here, a bit of lemon juice provides brightness and acid, whereas vanilla brings a fragile floral be aware. Seasoning with simply the correct amount of salt highlights these delicate flavors.

Baking and Ending the Pastry

After all of your onerous work, it’s time to trim, proof, and bake the pastries. You’ll portion the dough into four-inch squares, then pipe two tablespoons of cream cheese frosting into the middle of every. Filling the pastries earlier than they’ve proved permits the dough to puff across the cream cheese and lets us squeeze a bit extra filling into every Danish. It’s essential to correctly proof the pastries earlier than they bake—this helps to additional develop each taste and dough power, leading to crisp, flaky pastries with loads of layers. Baked till golden brown and topped with a sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar, these Danishes would be the first you’ll really need to attempt whereas they’re nonetheless contemporary…and perhaps even with a cup of espresso. You’ll need to put within the work to make them from begin to end, however you’ll additionally by no means be unhappy on the sight of a Danish once more.