Denmark - Danish Pastries

I've eaten all different types of Danish pastries before but never made them so I thought I'd give it a go for this!

Ingredients:

* 250g strong white flour
* 250g plain flour
* 7g sachet fast-action yeast
* 50g golden caster sugar
* 150ml whole or semi-skimmed milk
* 1 large egg , beaten plus extra beaten egg to glaze
* 250g pack lightly salted butter
* 85g pecans
* 50g light brown sugar
* 1 tbsp maple syrup
* 25g softened butter


The night before I wanted to make these, I sifted the flour, sugar and yeast into a mixing bowl. Stirred them well and then added the egg and milk. I combined all the ingredients together to make a smooth dough then covered and left overnight to rise. I also took the 250g of butter out of the fridge because it needs to be at room temperature for the recipe.



Roll out the dough on a floured surface until it's 1cm thick and into a rectangle shape. Cut up the butter into 8 even slices and place them in the middle of the rectangle. Fold the dough over the butter from each side.



Make sure the butter is covered and that you press down the dough firmly in the middle.



Now, roll the dough out into a big rectangle. Turn the dough 90 degrees. Fold a third of the dough from the right side into the middle then fold the left third in over that. Chill for 15 minutes in the fridge then take out and repeat these steps two more times.


Chop or crush the pecans (I bashed them with the rolling pin in a bag) then add the brown sugar, maple syrup and butter. Mix together well.



Roll the dough out again and cut into squares. Cut almost to the middle of the square from each corner. Put a spoonful of the pecan mix into the centre of the square and fold in to make a star/pinwheel type shape.



Press down the centre of each pinwheel well. Add a few more pecans on top and sprinkle with brown sugar. Place on a oven tray covered with baking paper.



Leave to rise for 30 minutes and then bake for 20 minutes on Gas Mark 4.

Mine came out like this:



They're not the prettiest looking Danish pastries but the smell of them made up for that!



I'm not sure I'd go to all the effort of making them again. It's a bit of a faff and you end up with something that tastes like a heart attack waiting to happen, which is btw really delicious!

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