Daring Bakers: Danish Braid

I was so excited to find out that Kelly of Sass & Veracity and Ben of What's Cookin'? chose this month's Daring Bakers' challenge to be a danish braid! I knew this would be a real challenge for me because I've never made anything like it before. But I've wanted to make a laminated dough for a while and I really want to try making my own croissants, so this was just perfect. And how awesome does the pastry look when it's braided??

I definitely had some butter oozing out the sides (due to the butter block) and air bubbles being formed when I was rolling out the dough, but overall it went well! I didn't add the cardamom, and I don't think I'd make it using so much orange next time. I dreamed about how delicious a lemon curd filling would be enveloped in this beautiful danish braid, but then went the easy route and did the caramelized apples. And my boyfriend loves apple pie so I thought I'd be nice.

Of course I tried it right out of the oven, and as gorgeous as it looked it didn't have the texture I was expecting. I think I expected a more flakey croissant type pastry (which I realize was probably a strange thing to expect), but it was a little bit chewy? I don't know if that's the way this dough is, or if it was me (quite possible). When I had it after it had been refrigerated though, the texture was just perfect.

Edit: I just realized that I was not paying attention and didn't realize that this was enough dough for TWO danish braids, so I used the entire dough to make one braid. My braid was twice as big as it should've been! Ah well - it still turned out okay and hopefully I learn to read recipes more carefully. ;)

Other Daring Bakers' challenges I've done:
Cheesecake Pops
Perfect Party Cake
Lemon Meringue Free Form Tarts
Yule Log

Caramelized Apple Danish Braid
The Secrets of Baking

Danish Dough

Makes 2-1/2 pounds dough

Ingredients
For the dough (Detrempe)
1 ounce fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup whole milk
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange, finely grated
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 large eggs, chilled
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

For the butter block (Beurrage)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

DOUGH
Combine yeast and milk in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed. Slowly add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice. Mix well. Change to the dough hook and add the salt with the flour, 1 cup at a time, increasing speed to medium as the flour is incorporated. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. You may need to add a little more flour if it is sticky. Transfer dough to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Without a standing mixer: Combine yeast and milk in a bowl with a hand mixer on low speed or a whisk. Add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice and mix well. Sift flour and salt on your working surface and make a fountain. Make sure that the “walls” of your fountain are thick and even. Pour the liquid in the middle of the fountain. With your fingertips, mix the liquid and the flour starting from the middle of the fountain, slowly working towards the edges. When the ingredients have been incorporated start kneading the dough with the heel of your hands until it becomes smooth and easy to work with, around 5 to 7 minutes. You might need to add more flour if the dough is sticky.

BUTTER BLOCK
1. Combine butter and flour in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle and then beat for 1 minute more, or until smooth and lump free. Set aside at room temperature.
2. After the detrempe has chilled 30 minutes, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 18 x 13 inches and ¼ inch thick. The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour. Spread the butter evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough. Fold the left edge of the detrempe to the right, covering half of the butter. Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third. The first turn has now been completed. Mark the dough by poking it with your finger to keep track of your turns, or use a sticky and keep a tally. Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface. The open ends should be to your right and left. Roll the dough into another approximately 13 x 18 inch, ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third. No additional butter will be added as it is already in the dough. The second turn has now been completed. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
4. Roll out, turn, and refrigerate the dough two more times, for a total of four single turns. Make sure you are keeping track of your turns. Refrigerate the dough after the final turn for at least 5 hours or overnight. The Danish dough is now ready to be used. If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it. To do this, roll the dough out to about 1 inch in thickness, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze. Defrost the dough slowly in the refrigerator for easiest handling. Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Apple Filling
Makes enough for two braids

Ingredients
4 Fuji or other apples, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Toss all ingredients except butter in a large bowl. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat until slightly nutty in color, about 6 - 8 minutes. Then add the apple mixture and sauté until apples are softened and caramelized, 10 to 15 minutes. If you’ve chosen Fujis, the apples will be caramelized, but have still retained their shape. Pour the cooked apples onto a baking sheet to cool completely before forming the braid. (If making ahead, cool to room temperature, seal, and refrigerate.) They will cool faster when spread in a thin layer over the surface of the sheet. After they have cooled, the filling can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Left over filling can be used as an ice cream topping, for muffins, cheesecake, or other pastries.

Danish Braid (putting it all together)
Makes enough for 2 large braids

Ingredients
1 recipe Danish Dough (see below)
2 cups apple filling, jam, or preserves (see below)

For the egg wash: 1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk

1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle, ¼ inch thick. If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again. Place the dough on the baking sheet.
2. Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5-inch-long cuts with a knife or rolling pastry wheel, each about 1 inch apart. Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to line up the cuts with those you’ve already made.
3. Spoon the filling you’ve chosen to fill your braid down the center of the rectangle. Starting with the top and bottom “flaps”, fold the top flap down over the filling to cover. Next, fold the bottom “flap” up to cover filling. This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling. Now begin folding the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished. Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends.

Egg Wash
Whisk together the whole egg and yolk in a bowl and with a pastry brush, lightly coat the braid.

Proofing and Baking
1. Spray cooking oil (Pam…) onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid. Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch.
2. Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.
3. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown. Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

TWD: Russian Grandmothers' Apple Pie-Cake

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Natalie of Burned Bits. I don't know that I ever would have made this recipe had it not been chosen because I don't usually go for fruity desserts and I'm not a big fan of apple pie. I'd rather just eat the crust of the apple pie without the apples. Well maybe a tiny bit of apples. Anyway, I was happy that I made this because it's something different and I've never heard of or tried a pie-cake like this.

As a person who hates rolling out dough, I was really happy with how this dough turned out. I refrigerated it for a few hours, then let it sit out on the counter for about 20 minutes to warm up a bit. I rolled it between pieces of plastic wrap, which made it really easy. I would highly recommend anyone who fears pie crusts to try this recipe out. Overall it was easy to make, and not too time consuming (aside from cutting up a billion apples). The only things I changed were to use half the amount of raisins and 8 apples instead of 10 (Fuji apples are huge!)

Now the taste. Well this cake is good, for me it's not amazing. I think it took me some time to get over the fact that this was not an apple pie and so I couldn't expect a crispy crust. The cake "crust" was very soft almost bordering on crumbly. I liked the edges where it got a bit crisp (see, there I am hoping for that crisp pie crust). The one thing I found a bit odd was how dry the apple filling was. How do you get a gooey apple pie filling? I guess this one was not mean to be that way. This dessert is not too sweet, and after trying a second piece of it later on, I decided that it's a very homey and comforting dessert. Not sure if I'd make it again though it is beautiful and bumpy looking. Go check out all the other lovely Tuesdays with Dorie members and their apple pie-cakes!

Other Dorie Greenspan recipes I've made:
Chocolate Pots de Crème
Orange Berry Muffins
Chocolate Chip Cookie Topped Brownies
Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

Russian Grandmothers' Apple Pie-Cake
Baking: From My Home To Yours

For The Dough
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Juice of 1 lemon
3 1/4 - 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For The Apples
10 medium apples, all one kind or a mix (I like to use Fuji, Golden Delicious and Ida Reds; my grandmother probably used dry baking apples like Cordland and Rome)
Squirt of fresh lemon juice
1 cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Sugar, preferably decorating (coarse) sugar, for dusting

To Make The Dough: Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes more. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the baking powder and salt and mix just to combine. Add the lemon juice - the dough will probably curdle, but don't worry about it. Still working on low speed, slowly but steadily add 3 1/4 cups of the flour, mixing to incorporate it and scraping down the bowl as needed. The dough is meant to be soft, but if you think it looks more like a batter than a dough at this point, add the extra 1/4 cup flour. (The dough usually needs the extra flour.) When properly combined, the dough should almost clean the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each half into a rectangle. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or for up to 3 days. (The dough can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months; defrost overnight in the refrigerator.)

To Make The Apples: Peel and core the apples and cut into slices about 1/4 inch thick; cut the slices in half crosswise if you want. Toss the slices in a bowl with a little lemon juice - even with the juice, the apples may turn brown, but that's fine - and add the raisins. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together, sprinkle over the apples and stir to coat evenly. Taste an apple and add more sugar, cinnamon, and/or lemon juice if you like.

Getting Ready to Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375F. Generously butter a 9x12-inch baking pan (Pyrex is good) and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.

Remove the dough from the fridge. If it is too hard to roll and it cracks, either let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes or give it a few bashes with your rolling pin to get it moving. Once it's a little more malleable, you've got a few choices. You can roll it on a well-floured work surface or roll it between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper. You can even press or roll out pieces of the dough and patch them together in the pan - because of the baking powder in the dough, it will puff and self-heal under the oven's heat. Roll the dough out until it is just a little larger all around than your pan and about 1/4 inch thick - you don't want the dough to be too thin, because you really want to taste it. Transfer the dough to the pan. If the dough comes up the sides of the pan, that's fine; if it doesn't that's fine too.

Give the apples another toss in the bowl, then turn them into the pan and, using your hands, spread them evenly across the bottom.

Roll out the second piece of dough and position it over the apples. Cut the dough so you've got a 1/4 to 1/2 inch overhang and tuck the excess into the sides of the pan, as though you were making a bed. (If you don't have that much overhang, just press what you've got against the sides of the pan.)

Brush the top of the dough lightly with water and sprinkle sugar over the dough. Using a small sharp knife, cut 6 to 8 evenly spaced slits in the dough.

Bake for 65 to 80 minutes*, or until the dough is a nice golden brown and the juices from the apples are bubbling up through the slits. Transfer the baking pan to a cooling rack and cool to just warm or to room temperature. You'll be tempted to taste it sooner, but I think the dough needs a little time to rest.

*Mine was done at 55 minutes, and maybe a touch too brown so check it around 45-50 minutes.

My First Real Crust

I love tarts, quiches, and basically anything that comes in a crust or something resembling a pie crusts (except most fruit pies, but even then I will happily eat the crust and pick at the fruit). Why - because I am a crust fiend. Being a crust fiend, I have always been scared of making a pie crust and how disastrously it might turn out. Of course I wanted it to be perfect the first time. (I don't set high expectations for myself!) After looking at some beautiful tarts (more tarts) and quiches on Smitten Kitchen, I was convinced that I had to at least try to make a crust. Armed with newfound bravery and a recipe from Rebar, I made my first pie crust.

I used a recipe for a whole wheat pastry, though it's about a 1 to 3 ratio for whole wheat flour to white flour. I was hoping for an all whole wheat crust but apparently you can't really do that, though I did find a recipe for a 100% whole wheat pizza crust at Checkered Napkins that uses whole wheat pastry flour, so perhaps I could use that as inspiration to make a 100% whole wheat pie crust. I used all butter, instead of the half butter half shortening called for. I was astounded at how easy the pie crust was to make and ecstatic to see it turn out looking and tasting okay. The preamble to the recipe says that it's foolproof, and I'd have to agree. It has you roll the dough out between two pieces of plastic wrap (which doesn't make the environmentally friendly person in me happy, but I hope to become more skilled where I won't need to do this sort of thing). You then lift off the top piece of plastic wrap, and flip the dough upside down into the pie crust. As it turns out, I didn't roll the dough into a perfect circle so when I was folding the extra bits in, it was a bit uneven. But it all worked out in the end so I can't really complain.

There are two tart recipes in the wonderful Rebar cookbook: apple and spinach tart, and squash & smoked cheddar tart. I went for the apple and spinach tart first, and I have plans to try out the other one later. Though I might use sweet potato instead of squash, but anyway. The tart was quite tasty, despite the long wait time since the tart wouldn't set. I wasn't sure how the apples on the top would turn out - a tasty addition or a strange apples gone brown exposed to air thing. They ended up being a tasty addition and added something different to a savoury tart. I look forward to using this recipe as a base to come up with my own tart filling combinations!

Oh and I'm trying something different with the photos for this post. Mostly because the original lighting of them was not so great, so I'm trying to use the magic of photoshop to make them look better. The pictures are, I don't even know how to describe them - brighter, more yellow and overexposed? Is this a good thing, I'm not sure. One day I will learn the skill of making poorly lighted photos look awesome (I hope). Or just get one of those expensive cameras with the flash that I can point up the ceiling to diffuse the light and all that fancy stuff.

Apple & Spinach Tart
(adapted from Rebar)

serves 8

1 pre-baked whole wheat tart shell
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped leeks
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cracked pepper
1 bunch spinach, stemmed, washed and wilted
3 eggs
1 cup light cream*
1 cup grated aged cheddar**
3 apples, a combination of red & green
1 egg white, lightly beaten

1. Heat the butter and olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the leeks and a pinch of salt and saute until the leeks are soft. Set aside to cool. Wilt the spinach, squeeze out excess water and chop. Next, lightly beat the eggs in a bowl. Add cream, salt and pepper and whisk together.

2. To assemble the tart, evenly distribute grated aged white cheddar over the bottom of the pre-baked tart shell. Follow with the leeks and the spinach. Pour the egg mixture over top.

3. Quarter and core the apples. Thinly slice each quarter into 8 thin wedges. Starting at the outer edge of the tart, overlap apple slices, skin sides facing out, in a circle around the edge. Spiral the overlapping slices towards the center of the tart to cover the entire surface. Beat the egg white in a small bowl and brush over the apples. Place the tart on a baking tray and bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes***, or until the egg is set and the crust has browned. Let the tart rest for at least 15 minutes before removing from the pan. Cut into wedges and serve.

*I used what I had, which was 1/2 cup whipped cream and 1/2 cup 1% milk.
**The recipe calls for crumbled blue cheese but I really am not at the point of liking blue cheese yet. And extremely love aged white cheddar.
***I ended up baking it for 45-55 minutes because it didn't seem to be setting. Maybe because I used half 1% milk?

Note: I used an 8" pie shell and it only fit 2 apples and not quite all of the egg/cream mixture.

Whole Wheat Pastry
(adapted from Rebar)

makes one 10" tart

1 cup unbleached flour
6 tbsp whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
7 tbsp chilled unsalted butter
4 tbsp ice water

1. Combine the first four ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir together. Add the chilled butter. Using our fingertips, mix gingerly until the fat and flour combine to form a coarse meal. Sprinkle in the ice water and mix until the dough just holds together. Form into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes, or until ready to use.

2. Wipe counter with a lightly damp cloth. Spread a sheet of plastic wrap over the moistened surface to cover an area slightly larger than the intended crust size. Smooth the plastic into place. Position the ball of dough in the center of the plastic and press with your palm to flatten a circle 6" across. Cover the dough with a second sheet of plastic wrap.

3. Roll out the dough in strokes radiating outwards from the center, with even pressure on the rolling pin, to a size slightly larger than the diameter of the tart pan. Gently lift the top sheet of plastic off the dough, and have a tart pan ready by your side. Lift the crust by the bottom sheet and flip the dough upside down, centered onto the pan. The dough should be overlapping all around the sides of the pan.

4. Carefully separate the plastic from the dough and gently press it against the sides. Using your thumb, push the dough all along the edge where the side meets the bottom. Fold the overhang inwards, leaving a double crust along the side and a rounded edge on top. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork to prevent the crust from puffing up when pre-baking. Bake in the center of a pre-heated 350F oven for 15 minutes or until slightly golden.