Danish pastries

Danish pastries take time and effort to make yourself  Would I say they were worth it? That would be a definite YES.

I thought that I did not like them and only made some for two reasons. Firstly my boyfriend loves them and secondly they begin with D, this months alpha bakes letter. So I decided to earn extra girlfriend points and make them. They looked rather enticing as they emerged from the oven and so I tried one, and what do you know, another thing I like when made at home and not bought in shops. I think I have lost girlfriend points however for eating half instead of letting him have them all...

The Danish pasty is a little time consuming to make. It is interesting in that the base is like an enriched dough, similar to brioche, but then the butter is incorporated as a block and folded in, similar to puff pastry. 

The baked result is a fantastic texture, soft, light dough in the centre with a flake on the outside.

I followed Paul Hollywood's recipe for Danish pastry. It is lengthy description and I could not phrase it any better, nor am I going to copy it word for word. Though I do urge you to look up his recipe and give it a go. 

The Danish I made contained raisins and pastry cream (a pain aux raisin, if you prefer) mainly as I had raisins in the cupboard but I definitely want to try a few others , such as apple and apricot. 

Interestingly I learnt something about pastry cream. If you do not quite cook it enough and even once it is cooled it is not quite thick enough all is not lost. It turns out that you can put it back in the pan and cook it out a little more. I figured it was worth a try before making a new batch, and it paid off!

I imagine these are very nice for breakfast but its Saturday and snowy and I did not want to come out from the duvet. I can confirm that they are just as delicious with a cup of tea as a post lunch dessert!