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Pastry to make Danishes- (Base recipe)

Source of Recipe

Unknown


Recipe Introduction

This is scaled down to fit a household portion. Ingredients; Flour: hard wheat flours have the proteins necessary to form a strong gluten structure, allowing the dough to stretch, rather than break, when rolling. Some soft flour is incorporated to prevent resistance when rolling. Fat; Up to an equal amount as flour by weight. A butter to lard ratio is used for better flakiness, butter having more water in it and lard for larger fat crystals. (60 degrees F.) Liquid; Use ice water or very cold milk. Yeast; Fresh yeast rather than dried and a proofing temperature between78-82 degrees F. Care; Minimally knead to prevent excess gluten, retard the dough over night to create flaky layers, before rolling in the layers of butter. Rather than freezing the block of dough it is best to freeze the finished product. Thaw in the fridge over night, then bake. Exceptions are, unfilled or lightly filled danishes can be baked from the freezer. i.e. Palmiers and Vole au vents. Some temperatures; Bake palmiers, sacristans and other small cookies at 425 degrees F Sheet pan napoleans at 400 degrees f. Large filled tortad at 375 degrees F.

List of Ingredients

4 1/2 C flour
1 C milk
7 pkgs granular yeast
3 3/4 T sugar
2 T butter, melted
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tsp cardamom
1 pound butter-2 T. (approximately)


Recipe

The dough;
Mix the milk, eggs,sugar and yeast. Blend well. Add the melted butter and salt. Stir and add the flour. mix until well blended. Knead until the dough is easily handled, but not long enough for the dough to get tough. Chill the dough.
Roll the dough out to an 18x18 square. Have the dough and the butter at about the same consistency, check this by pinching each lightly, if they feel the same it is ready. Dough and butter must not be to cold or stiff or you will get tears in the dough. Have the butter rolled to under the 18x18 so there is room on the edges. Place the butter on half of the dough and fold the other half over, press edges to seal. Chill dough as necessary if it becomes too warm and hard to manage.
Begin rolling lightly, back and forth with a light pressure and change directions frequently so butter does not end up a large amount at one end. roll to 3/4 inch thick.
Roll out to a 12x20 rectangle and about 1 inch thick. Now fold one third of outer dough over the center making sure to brush off any excess flour with a brush. Now fold the last third of dough over center. This makes three layers of butter and four of dough. A second rolling will give you 9 layers. Continue this process until you have 27 layers of butter and 29 of dough.
You are now ready to cut and roll the dough for pastries such as butter cake. Roll out thinner for pastries requiring thinner dough such as combs and kringle, then cut to desired size and add a filling if required.
Once cut and shaped let rise for 15-20 minutes before baking.