The other great innovation that northern Europeans, specifically the Viennese, brought to layered pastry was yeast. Both croissant dough and Danish (two of the four main layered doughs, the others being flaky pastry and puff pastry) call for it. That may seem a little odd since as I mentioned, layered doughs already employ steam power, […]
READ ONCall me crazy, but when somebody offers me a pastry called a “bear claw”, I actually expect to see something that looks, at least a little, like a bear’s claw. Hence my years of confusion going into doughnut shops and encountering amorphous blobs of fried dough that bore the name. I swear to you I […]
READ ONGot this question in from a reader last evening: Joe, I thought you said Arabs invented pastry, now you say it was the Viennese? Please explain. Actually I guess it’s more of a directive than a question, but I’m happy to oblige either way. The northern European contribution to the pastry arts can be summed […]
READ ONHere’s another very simple one that anyone can do in the comfort of their own living room: the pinwheel. As with the cheese Danish, start by rolling out about a pound and a half of dough into a rectangle about a quarter inch thick (the exactly dimensions aren’t important. Starting with a rough square… …cut […]
READ ON…European, and especially French, pâtissiers have a few secret weapons up their collective sleeve when it comes to pastry making: specialty butters. Which is to say, ultra high-fat butters made for specific applications. Buerre pâtissier is one of these, made speciifically for layered doughs like Danish pastry and croissant. For reasons I’ll get into a […]
READ ONI 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). […]
READ ONHere’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 […]
READ ONThis 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 […]
READ ONMy 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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