Euro Fat

I can hear a lot of you out there scoffing at the notion of paying that much money for butter. Can it really be that good? Can it really be that different? Yes my friends, it can. And it’s not just because it’s a few percentage points higher in fat (though that certainly doesn’t hurt). […]

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Cheese Danish Filling

Here’s a classic sweet cream cheese filling for Danishes or coffee cakes. The filling is simplicity itself, something that I almost always just improvise. The rough proportions are as follows: 8 ounces cream cheese 1/4 cup sugar 1 egg yolk 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon lemon juice Sometimes I’ll add a little lemon or […]

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The Cheese Danish

This shape is perhaps the easiest of all the Danish types, being just a simple packet made from a dough square. The filling is simplicity itself, something that I almost always just improvise. The rough proportions are as follows: 8 ounces cream cheese 1/4 cup sugar 1 egg yolk 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon […]

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I stand corrected

My new friend Gerhard writes in — from Vienna no less — to correct my Viennish post. He writes: …you mention “Kopenhagener”… now get this: There is no such thing here. Check any Viennese bakery, you won’t find it. What you refer to is called here “Plunder”, made of puff pastry and a dash of, […]

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How much was that butter again?

I said real Danishes were good, I didn’t say they were cheap. Good Euro butter, if you can locate the truly outstanding stuff, can run you in excess of ten dollars a pound. Is it worth it? Absolutely, for just like any pastry made from a layered (or “laminated”) dough, butter is where the lion’s […]

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I Don’t Like Ike

We had one heck of a wind storm yesterday that took out power to most of Louisville and knocked over a huge number of our famous old-growth trees. Given how many houses are under those trees, there seems to be a fair amount of damage…though obviously nothing compared to what all those poor folks to […]

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The Snail Roll

Like classic sweet rolls, these too are fixtures of the Danish counter. The reason (probably), because the shape is so darn versatile. There are chocolate chip snails (like mine above), cinnamon sugar snails, cinnamon sugar and raisin snails, walnut and cinnamon sugar snails, pecan snails, almond filling snails and any-kind-of- jam-you-can-possibly-think-of snails. And none are […]

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Viennish

Would you be surprised if I told you that the Danish isn’t actually Danish? Of course you wouldn’t, because by now you well know that layered pastries weren’t invented by Europeans, but by the Arabs and/or Turks, and only arrived in Europe in the high middle ages. Just how they got there is anyone’s guess, […]

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