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Classic Danish pastry is crisp, tender, light and slightly flaky and is simply referred to as "Danish." American-style Danish is far more sweet and cakey in texture. Genuine Danish is true pastry, falling somewhere between croissant and brioche, but contains about twice as much fat as croissant dough and American-style Danish. Plus, it contains an egg, which croissant does not.
Danish is made from laminated yeasted dough into which butter is layered, similar to the method used for puff pastry and croissant. However, because they contain yeast, Danish require warmth, or proofing before baking, so they can be layered as puff pastry.
SARAH SAYS: The average Danish is given a minimum of 3 turns or folds, resulting in 27 layers!
Before baking, the dough is first spread with Remonce, made of almond paste, sugar, butter and vanilla. The fillings and toppings consist of fruit jams and preserves, such as blueberry, apricot, sour cherry or other fruit, or cream cheese, nuts, raisins and sugar glazes. Danish comes in all sorts of shapes, such as bear claw (Cockscombs), slips, snails, braids, envelopes, and twists, to name a few.
When baked, Danish should have a crisp outer crust and a rich, tender, slightly layered interior, but not as light nor quite as flaky as croissant. It rises because of the yeast as well as the steam. The layers of butter help separate the dough into the tender flakiness that distinguishes good Danishes. When baked, the butter worked into the layers of dough gives off moisture, and the resulting steam causes the thin layers of dough to puff and rise. In order to work, The butter used must be cold and malleable, perfect at 60 degrees F when rolled into the pastry; too cold and it breaks through the dough; too warm and soft, and it gets absorbed into the flour, destroying the layering and causing greasy results.
