DANISHES

At Bourke Street Bakery, we love Danish pastries, because the fillings lend themselves to seasonal variations. We’ve made different fruit danishes over the years, inspired by what fine fruit is in season — including apple, pear, rhubarb, cherry, mixed berry, apricot, peach, mango and nectarine.

Here we’ve included a few classic fruit options for you to try. You’ll need to poach or roast the fruit and make the crème pâtissière at least a day ahead.

Makes 36

1 quantity Croissant dough, taken to the laminating stage only

200 g (7 oz) Crème pâtissière

1 quantity Poached pears or Roasted rhubarb

1 quantity Egg wash

icing sugar mixture, for dusting

In a Danish pastry, it is great to see the lamination of the folds. To see this clearly you can reduce the number of pastry folds. If you drop a fold, you will not have as many layers, but the layers you do have will be quite pronounced. Try just doing one simple fold, and one ‘book fold’, in the following way.

Remove the butter for laminating from the fridge 1 hour before using. Use a rolling pin to lightly pound the butter between two sheets of baking paper, to form a piece about 7–8 mm (³/₈ inch) thick, and about 20 cm (8 inches) square.

Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out into a rectangle measuring about 20 x 40 cm (8 x 16 inches).

Remove the butter from the baking paper, then place the butter in the centre of the dough. Fold the dough over the butter, squeezing the edges together, to completely enclose the butter.

Now you can start to laminate, or fold, the butter into the dough, by carefully rolling the dough out into a rectangle measuring about 20 x 90 cm (8 x 35½ inches).

Fold the rectangle from one long end by one-third, so the dough is now 20 x 60 cm (8 x 24 inches). Fold over the other long end, so the dough is now 20 x 30 cm (8 x 12 inches). These folds are similar to the folding of a letter to place in an envelope.

Put the dough in a plastic bag, or cover well with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 20 minutes, to allow the gluten to relax.

On your work surface, rotate the dough 90 degrees so that as you roll it out, you are stretching it in the opposite direction to the previous fold. Roll out the dough until you have a rectangle measuring about 20 x 90 cm (8 x 35½ inches), then perform a ‘book turn’ fold, by folding the two edges of the short ends into each other, to meet symmetrically in the middle, then folding them onto themselves, creating a ‘book’.

Rest the dough in the fridge for another 20 minutes, and it will then be ready to be pinned out and cut.

Roll the rested dough out into a rectangle measuring about 40 x 85 cm (16 x 33½ inches). This may take quite a lot of energy, as the dough may keep springing back to its original size. If this happens, rest the dough in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, then resume rolling. This resting process may need to be done a number of times. If the dough is becoming too large to fit in the fridge, simply fold it over and place it on a tray before chilling it.

Cut the dough into 36 squares, 9 cm (3½ inches) in size. Place on baking trays lined with baking paper and rest in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.

Remove the squares from the fridge. Working with one square at a time, fold each corner to the centre, pressing down firmly to create a smaller square. Place 1 teaspoon of crème pâtissière in the centre of each, and top with two pieces of poached pear, or about five pieces of roasted rhubarb. Place the danishes back onto the lined baking trays at well-spaced intervals.

(At this point you could store some in the freezer for a few weeks. When you’re ready to use them, place them in the fridge overnight, then early next morning, simply prove and bake as directed below.)

Cover loosely with a damp tea towel or damp muslin (cheesecloth). Set aside in a warm room (about 26–28°C/ 79–82°F) for 2–3 hours, or until almost doubled in size. Spray the cloth with water occasionally if it becomes dry.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F).

Lightly brush the top of the danishes with egg wash and place in the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for about 15 minutes, or until deeply golden.

Allow to cool slightly on the trays before dusting with icing sugar.