Danish pastry
A yeasted laminated dough enriched with egg and sugar, which ferments and laminates at the same time — two processes with opposite temperature preferences.
Also called danish (INTERNATIONAL), wienerbrød (INTERNATIONAL) — The Danish name, which translates as 'Viennese bread' and records where the technique arrived from., danish pastries (UK)
A Danish is a laminated dough like a croissant, with two differences that matter: it is enriched with egg and sugar, and it is generally rolled to fewer, thicker layers.
IT IS TWO LEAVENING SYSTEMS AT ONCE. Fermentation inflates the dough layers and steam from the butter pushes them apart. That is what a croissant does too, and it is why both are difficult: the butter needs the dough cold enough to stay in sheets, and the yeast needs it warm enough to work. The whole method is a negotiation between those two requirements.
THE ENRICHMENT CHANGES THE MARGINS. Egg and sugar tenderise the dough and slow the fermentation, and sugar on the surface browns fast — which is why a Danish colours sooner than a croissant at the same temperature, and why an overbaked one is bitter rather than merely dark.
PROVING IS WHERE MOST OF THEM ARE LOST. A laminated yeasted dough proved somewhere warm melts its butter layers before baking; the fat leaves the structure, the layers merge, and the pastry bakes flat and greasy in a pool of butter. Proving is therefore slow and cool by necessity, and a warm airing cupboard is exactly the wrong place.
THE NAME RECORDS ITS OWN HISTORY. The Danish word for these pastries translates as 'Viennese bread', and the technique is generally described as having arrived in Denmark from Austrian baking in the nineteenth century. BakeHQ records that as the traditional account it is: the connection is well attested in outline and the popular versions of it carry detail the sources do not support.
What it should be like
- Structure
- Distinct layers, more open and bready than a croissant’s
- Crust
- Well coloured and glazed; browns faster than an unsweetened dough
- Tenderness
- Richer and softer than croissant, from egg and sugar
Where it comes from
Traditional account
A long-standing account of how something originated or was done. Recorded as tradition, which is not the same as recorded as fact.
The Danish name for these pastries translates as 'Viennese bread', which records the direction the technique travelled. The detail in the popular versions of that story is not supported by the sources.
More in baking history and culture.
Why butter leaks out, and what it tells you about which stage failed
Butter on the tray means the fat stopped being layers at some point, and when it happened is readable from the pastry.
If the pastry is flat and dense with no visible layers at all, the fat probably merged during rolling — worked too warm, or rolled so hard that it broke up and dispersed into the dough.
If there are layers but the pastry is greasy and shorter than expected, the loss more likely happened during proving: the butter softened past the point of staying in sheets and ran before the oven could turn it to steam.
If the layers are good and there is simply a little butter on the tray, some loss at the cut edges is normal and not a fault.
Related
Part of
A laminated dough, with fermentation running alongside the lamination.
Things that go wrong
The laminated pastry did not puff
A yeasted laminated dough, so proving temperature and butter temperature are in direct conflict — which is this model’s subject.
Sugar-glazed pastries colour fast and unevenly.
What this product needs done
Structure building
The dough layers are a developed network; without one, lamination has nothing to laminate.
Gas retention
Fermentation gas is held by the dough layers while steam pushes them apart.
Aeration
Yeast, alongside steam from the roll-in butter.
Hydration
Standard for an enriched dough.
Fermentation substrate
Sugar and flour.
Characteristic ingredients
Strength for lamination, tempered by the enrichment.
The roll-in fat, whose plastic range decides how the lamination goes.
Enrichment and colour.
Sweetness, and fast browning.
Fermenting while the butter needs the dough cold.
Techniques involved
The defining technique.
Running against the lamination’s need for cold.
Cut and folded while cold.