Hi, today is the first episode of our Northern Europe series. If you followed me, you may know that recently I was invited to visit Northern Europe by tourism boards from three countries.
They tailor made a foodie tour for me, so I basically was eating all the way, and I really want to share the recipes with you.
When I was in Copenhagen, Denmark, I attended a bakery section. There is a baker instructor, and I spend half a day there.
Together we made five or six kinds of bread, and one of the most famous one is called danish puff pastry, or danish.
Now let's get started to make one. First, let's go over the ingredients.
You will need bread flour, milk, butter, egg, honey, salt and instant yeast.
First off, mix all the ingredients (except butter) into a dough. Put them straight in the stand mixer, flour, egg, flour, honey, salt and instant yeast. Do not put salt next to yeast.
Roughly mix it with the dough hook, and then begin to knead the dough.
It takes about five minutes, and it's the same if you do it manually. Do not knead until glutinous, just stop when the dough is smooth and not sticky.
Touch your dough, if it's not sticky to touch, take it out and shape it into a ball.
Wrap with a piece of cling film, and chill in the fridge for about half an hour.
Now my butter is softened at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Wrap it in parchment paper, and then beat with a rolling pin.
Do it vertically and horizontally, until it's flattened.
Once done, carefully fold the parchment paper.
Make it like a rectangular envelope shape.
Now roll out butter.
It's softened by now, so you can roll it out towards its four corners.
So that you can roll it out thinly into a rectangular dough sheet.
Feel it with your hand, and even out the surface with rolling pin if not smooth
Now the butter sheet is about 5mm thick. I also measured its size, and it's 18*23cm.
Now our dough has been sitting for half an hour, transfer it to the floured working surface.
Press it down, and sprinkle some flour.
Roll it out with rolling pin like so.
Roll it into a rectangular dough sheet, and make its width about the same as the length of butter.
That is 23 cm wide. And the length should be 3/2 of the width of butter, and that is 27cm.
Now place butter slice over the dough sheet.
Fold the rest 1/3 dough sheet to the center.
And fold the other end again, and make it a three folds dough.
Stretch the dough if needed, and make sure the butter slice is wrapped inside.
Roll it out evenly with rolling pin.
Rotate 90 degrees, and try to roll it out into a rectangular dough sheet.
Make another three folds.
Now the dough has been folded twice, and butter is softened. Leave it, wrap with cling film and pop it back to the fridge to chill for another 15 minutes.
The process eases handling of the dough, and also makes the butter solid again.
After 15 minutes, take it out, roll it our evenly with rolling pin, and roll out up and down to make a rectangular dough sheet.
Repeat the folding, and make it three folds.
Wrap with cling film, and chill for 15 minutes again.
Now fold it for the last time. Rotate 90 degrees, roll it out into a rectangular dough sheet.
One last folding. So now the dough has been folded for four times.
Flour a plate, put the dough on it and cover with cling film. Put them back in the fridge to rest for the last time. It takes 30 minutes this time, as long as it's no longer than 12 hours, it's fine.
While we are waiting for the dough, prepare a almond paste filling.
You will need softened butter, almond flour and powdered sugar.
First, soften butter at room temperature and beat it with a whisk.
Add in powdered sugar and mix well.
Switch to a spatula, add in almond flour, and mix well.
Make it like a paste, and this is the filling.
Now the dough is done resting, take it out of the fridge and gently press it down a bit.
And then roll it out evenly with rolling pin
My rolling pin is not long enough, so I have to divide the dough into two parts.
Take one of them on a floured surface, and roll it out thinly into a rectangular dough sheet, about 5-8mm thick.
Cut the dough with a pizza cutter into small portions. I made 8 portions in total.
Scope about a tbs. of almond paste, and then fold the four corners towards the center.
Pinch the edge together, and this is a classic pasty shape.
Or, you can cut along each diagonal line, but do not cut through.
Scope almond paste in the middle.
Fold the corners to the center following the same direction.
So that you have a pinwheel bread. Or if you have some leftover dough, you can rub almond paste on it, and make a little sandwich.
Twist it like so , and this is also a type of bread. Now put all the bread dough over a roasting pan lined with parchment paper, cover with cling film and rest aside.
At room temperature 20-25C, rest for about 2 hours until they grow a little bigger.
Now preheat the oven. 180C/256F under fan mode, or 200C/392F for a normal bake mode.
Now press a little dimple in the center.
And brush a thin layer of egg wash.
Scope a spoonful of jam, here I am using marmalade, and for the recipe please click the link.
You can also substitute with other jams if you like.
Now pop them in the oven, bake for 15 minutes under fan mode.
Until they are golden.
Sprinkle some almond slices on top to garnish. I hope you enjoy this Danish puff pastry.
There are so many fancy ways to make Danish, you can garnish with syrup, almond slices and all kinds of toppings.
For a good puff pastry, if you separate it open, not sure if you can hear the sound or not, but actually there is a the crack sound. And when you bite, it's crispy on the outside, but very light inside.
So that's all for today. Next week we will have two episodes coming, Izakaya on Wednesday, and Northern Europe series on Thursday. So see you then, bye!