Boston Bake Along: Danish Braids Day 2

This marks Day 2 of the Bake Along - Starting the day with Fabulous Fillings!

This is the apple according to the recipe from Brown Eyed Baker's Blog

Apple Filling

Makes enough for two braids

Ingredients

4 Fuji or other apples, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch pieces

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Toss all ingredients except butter in a large bowl. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat until slightly nutty in color, about 6 – 8 minutes. Then add the apple mixture and sauté until apples are softened and caramelized, 10 to 15 minutes. If you’ve chosen Fujis, the apples will be caramelized, but have still retained their shape. Pour the cooked apples onto a baking sheet to cool completely before forming the braid. (If making ahead, cool to room temperature, seal, and refrigerate.) They will cool faster when spread in a thin layer over the surface of the sheet. After they have cooled, the filling can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Left over filling can be used as an ice cream topping, for muffins, cheesecake, or other pastries.

The Raspberry filling I sort of made up on my own...I saw a recipe I didn't like much, so I pretty much did my own thing, only using the guideline of 10oz. frozen raspberries...


10oz frozen Raspberries
1 Heaping Tbsp Sugar (I'd add MORE SUGAR next time - maybe closer to 1/4 cup!)
2 Tsp Cornstarch
1/4 Tsp Vanilla
1/4 Tsp Cinnamon


Mix all ingredients in a small saucepan, and cook until done to desired thickness...(I probably had mine on there for about 7 minutes...)


This made less than a cup of filling (a little more than 3/4 cup) and I used it all in one pastry.


I spread both out to cool, which took probably less than an hour. Then I got working on the dough, since we needed to get crackin' if we wanted to be eating this by dinner! ;)


Here are the Danish Braid Directions, and I will follow up with my notes and pictures! 

Danish Braid

Makes enough for 2 large braids

Ingredients

1 recipe Danish Dough (see above)

2 cups apple filling, jam, or preserves (see above)

For the egg wash: 1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk

1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle, ¼ inch thick. If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again. Place the dough on the baking sheet.

2. Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5-inch-long cuts with a knife or rolling pastry wheel, each about 1 inch apart. Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to line up the cuts with those you’ve already made.

3. Spoon the filling you’ve chosen to fill your braid down the center of the rectangle. Starting with the top and bottom “flaps”, fold the top flap down over the filling to cover. Next, fold the bottom “flap” up to cover filling. This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling. Now begin folding the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished. Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends.

Egg Wash

Whisk together the whole egg and yolk in a bowl and with a pastry brush, lightly coat the braid.

Proofing and Baking

1. Spray cooking oil (Pam) onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid. Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch.

2. Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.

3. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown. Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

I began by rolling the dough out on a lightly floured pastry mat (I love my Pampered Chef 16x24" silicone mat) AS THIN AS POSSIBLE, and I got PRETTY close to 15x20...but it definitely wasn't perfect, as you'll be able to tell from the picture:

Instead of putting it on parchment on the baking sheet, as the directions indicated, I thought i'd try something different - my baking sheets aren't big enough to accommodate 15x20, then make cuts and braid! I put the parchment (cut to fit my sheets, which I believe are approx 12x18) centered on the dough - still on the pastry mat. Then I put another pastry mat on top of that, flipped them over and Voila! the parchment was behind the dough and we were on easy street.
I sort of measured the thing into thirds and made a VERY light line with my pastry wheel to indicate each third. Then I cut strips 1" wide to line up with each other on each side of the pastry and  removed the four corner strips, leaving "tabs" at the ends of the middle 1/3. 

Put the filling down the middle between all of the tabs, fold the end flap down and start braiding!

I tend to be a little nuts about perfection when it comes to baking. But not in the anal-retentive sort of way...what ends up happening is I strive for perfection, the thing falls short somehow, and I give up knowing that it will probably taste good in the end and there will always be SOMEONE to eat it. So Warning: Your braiding will probably not be perfect. There will be small gaps and you will just have to deal with it. They will rise, they will bake, and they will look as perfect as they can be, and everyone will be impressed with them anyway :)

After they finished rising (two hours later - at room temp, which was about 87 degrees anyway! :) I sprinkled some Pearl Sugar (from IKEA! So these were Swedish, not Danish! :) on the raspberry one. I planned all along on frosting the apple one, since Husband loves sugar and butter and that was "his" danish.

Pop it in the oven at 400 for 10 mins, then turn the pan and drop the heat to 350, but WATCH IT! I have a gas oven and didn't need a full 10 minutes before it was cooked to perfection.

I left the apple in for about 9 minutes before I pulled it out, getting nervous about the egg wash burning and the inside being raw.

Silly me, it was perfect. ;) The frosting I made goes as follows:


2c. Confectioner's sugar, whisked
1/2 t. Vanilla
2T Milk (warm) - or enough milk to get to desired thickness


I would have added less milk to mine because I wish the frosting was thicker, but what I ended up doing was doing four layers of the icing. so I did one, let it harden, did another, repeat repeat. I put it in a candy squeeze bottle for ease. It worked wonderfully.

Somehow the rasperry cooked even faster, it had the original 10 minutes in the oven and the second bit after turning around was only about 6 minutes.


Then I added more icing to the top because the raspberry was too tart! But I think it ended up looking really pretty so I am glad I did it.

This Bake Along was a success, and I can't wait to do it again. For anyone afraid of pastry making, don't be! It was loads of fun. I can't say that I can't wait to make pastry again...as fun as it was, it was very time consuming, but planning ahead went a long way. What shall we bake next?