SUNDAY DESSERT #32: Blackberry Danish
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Austria 🇦🇹 (but also kinda Denmark 🇩🇰)
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Intermediate
INSPIRATION: I was just craving a really good Danish!
RECEPTION/COMMENTARY: The Danish pastry was made by hired Viennese workers when Danish bakers went on strike. They made their familiar pastry recipes from their Austrian homeland and sold them in bakeries around Denmark. It was called wienerbrød by the Danes and eventually became known as Danish around the world.
The buttery, flaky dough that we all know and love in a Danish is quite the process! It's made by laminating the yeast dough with thin sheets of butter. It takes a good 4 hours (minimum) and a fair amount of elbow grease to do this, but the results are SO worth it! It's very important when rolling the butter into the dough that they both stay chilled. This keeps the butter from melting and the result is layers upon layers of buttery goodness! Add some sugared cream cheese and your favorite jam, and it's perfection!
The recipe I used called for two teaspoons of salt in the dough. As I was making it I thought, "Holy crap! That's a ton of salt!" But I've made stuff from this lady before and this recipe got good reviews, so I decided to trust her process. Well, the only reason I gave this Danish a 9 instead of a 10 is because of the salt content in the dough. It was WAY too much! I should have trusted my gut and cut the amount of salt down to a quarter of what she used. It was still good, but could have been so much better. Oh well. You live and learn, right? I still ate my fair share of pastries nonetheless!
WOULD I MAKE IT AGAIN? Yup, but with less salt next time and maybe apple or raspberry preserves. 😋
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