Danish Pastries

I love pastry.  I love the thought of pastry.  I love making pastry.  I love the feel of pastry.  I love working with pastry.  I love the smell of pastry.  I love seeing pastry separate into flaky layers and become golden brown on baking.  I love watching people eat the pastry I have made.  I love photographing pastry.  I love eating pastry... which is probably the reason I love all that comes before. I think I'm 80% pastry... the other 20% is pure butter.

NOTE: I made 3 jam filled pastries and 3 Nutella filled pastries.  I made the Nutella ones for my boys who are Nutella-mad and to find out if they worked.  They really did work, but the jam-filled ones are, and always will be, my favourite.

Danish Pastries

slightly adapted from here

Makes 6 (*see below)

For the Pastry:

60ml lukewarm water

125ml milk, at room temperature

1 large egg, at room temperature

350g baker's flour (bread flour)

7g (1 sachet) dried yeast

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

25g caster sugar

250g unsalted butter, cold cut into small dice

For the Filling:

Any jam or spread of your choice.  I used homemade blackberry jam and Nutella.

For the Egg Wash:

1 egg

2 tablespoon milk

For the Clear Glaze:

100g caster sugar

60ml water

For the Sugar Glaze:

100g icing sugar

1 - 2 tabelspoons warm water

Chocolate Drizzle:
50g dark chocolate, melted

Make the Dough:

Put the water, milk and egg into a bowl, mix and set it aside.

Put the flour, yeast, salt and sugar into a food processor and blitz to mix.  Add the butter and process until it becomes a rubble (you don't want it to be completely fine).

Tip the flour mixture into a mixing bowl, add the wet mixture and fold together until it becomes a sticky dough.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator overnight.

Remove from the refrigerator and leave it to come to room temperature.  On a lightly floured board, roll it into a square about 50cm x 50cm.  Fold the square into thirds, like a business letter, turn it 90° so that the closed edge is on your left.  Roll it out again to a 50cm square, repeating the steps above three times.

*At this point you can cut the pastry in half and use one half for making the Danish Pastries below and freeze the other half for a day when you desperately need would like Danish pastries for breakfast, but can't be bothered with the whole pastry making palaver.

Make the Egg Wash:
Whisk the egg and milk together in a small bowl.  Set aside.

Make the Clear Glaze:
Put the caster sugar and water into a small saucepan.  Bring to boil and remove from heat once the sugar has dissolved.  Set aside.

For the Sugar Glaze:
Mix the icing sugar with enough warm water to make a drizzling consistency.  Set aside.

Make the Pastries:
Take said half of pastry (**see above) and roll it out to a big rectangle.  Cut it into 6 even squares. Fold opposing corners of each pastry square into the middle using a bit of the egg wash to seal them down and place them on a baking paper lined baking tray.

Dollop a tablespoonful of your chosen jam or spread into the middle of each square and brush the pastry with egg wash.  Leave to puff up for about 1½, or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly.

Brush with the clear glaze and leave to cool completely before drizzling with the sugar glaze (or chocolate drizzle).