Almond Danish Pastry

If you follow me on Twitter, (if you don't already, click here to start following me!) you may have read that I'm going to Denmark next week. Not quite a relaxed vacation enjoying nothing but Danish hygge, but it's an actual business/school trip. Nevertheless, I'm extremely excited and I'm surfing the web like a Dansk lunatic reading everything I possibly can about Danish culture and retweeting everything on Twitter. The conclusion is pretty much this: Denmark is the happiest place on earth, topping every happiness report. Not Disneyland. Bummer.

And for me, one of the biggest sources of happiness is food, so I reasoned that the Danes must have amazing food. The world's best restaurant is situated in Copenhagen, Noma. And one of my alltime favorite pastries comes from Denmark; Danish Pastry of course. And that is what I'm showing you today. I wanted an authentic Danish recipe and it turned out that (once again) all I needed to do is turn to Nigella Lawson, who borrows a recipe from Danish chef Beatrice Ojakangas.

The pastry dough is made with a processor: quick, easy & no-mess. Beatrice says; "Don't think you're cheating by taking the fast track - this is the way it's done these days all over Denmark." These almond Danish pastries were amazing! Flaky, buttery & all around perfect! Rating: 5 out of 5.






Processor Danish Pastry: Nigella Lawson - How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Ingredients:
- ¼ cup warm water
- ½ cup milk, at room temperature
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 ¼ cups white bread flour (I used all-purpose flour)
- 1 package, ¼ ounce rapid-rise yeast or 1 tablespoon fresh yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter, cold, cut into thin slices

Instructions:
- Pour the water and milk into a measuring cup and add the egg, beating with a fork to mix. Put aside. Put flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a food processor and give a quick whizz, just to mix. Add the cold slices of butter and process briefly so that the butter is cut up a little, though you still want visible chunks of at least ½ inch. Empty the contents of the food processor into a large bowl and quickly add the contents of the jug. Fold the ingredients together, but don’t overdo it; expect to have a gooey mess with some butter lumps pebbled through it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, put in the fridge and leave overnight or up to 4 days.
- To turn it into pastry, take it out of the fridge, let it get to room temperature and roll it out to a 20-inch square. Fold the dough square into thirds, like a business letter, turning it afterwards so that the closed fold is on your left, like the spine of a book. Roll out again to a 20-inch square, repeating the steps above 3 times. Cut in half, wrap both pieces and store in the fridge for 30 minutes before using, or the freezer to store.


Almond Danish: Nigella Lawson - How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Ingredients:
- half quantity of Danish Pastry (I doubled the ingredients written below and used the entire Danish pastry dough)
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons (5 ounces) blanched almonds, toasted (I used ground almonds)
- ⅓ cup + 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
- 2 tabelspoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 large egg white, beate lightly

Ingredients for egg glaze:
- 1 large egg, beaten with
- 2 tablespoons milk

Instructions:
- To make the almond filling, process the almonds and confectioners' sugar together until finely ground. Add the butter, pulse again, then the almond extract and 2 tablespoons of egg white.
- Roll out the pastry into a big square and cut into thirds horziontally. Then cut in half down the middle, giving you 6 rough squares. Take each square and put a tablespoon of the almond mixture - which you;ve shaped roughly into a sausage - onto the pastry at a diagonal. Bring up the opposite corners and pinch together, then flatten the pastry slightly. (I made various shapes)
- Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and brush with the egg glaze. Leave them to rise until they double in size, about 1 ½ hour. (I did this with one batch, but they came out HUGE, so the other batch I popped into the oven straightaway and they kept their shape.)
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Cook for 15 minutes or until puffy and beautifully golden brown.
- To make a glaze (optional), combine ½ cup confectioners' sugar with 1 to 2 tablespoons warm water and drizzle over the cooled almond Danish.


If anyone knows any must-try Danish food or great places to eat in Copenhagen
or Rødby, they would come in handy! I've already got some great tips!