SHEET STRUDEL,
DANISH,
SHORTBREAD
There’s nothing standard or traditional about these last recipes. Yes, they’re all still sheet cakes or slab pies, if sometimes in spirit, rather than fact. There’s a buttery, crunchy shortbread here, a baklava-like dessert, and a slab version of a traditional, crunchy dacquoise (dah-KWAHZ) with a super-rich, chocolate, French buttercream. What do they have in common? That sheet pan, of course, and the ability to serve crowds.
Working with Phyllo Dough
The standard North American package of phyllo dough has two packets of 9 × 13-inch parchment paper–like sheets. You’ll need to use two of these sheets (set long side against long side) to create one layer in a 13 × 18-inch sheet pan. That said, there are some high-end brands that indeed come in 13 × 18-inch sheets. As a boon, the 13 × 18-inch sheets tend to be slightly thicker so they don’t dry out and shard as quickly. Follow the package instructions for thawing any package of phyllo.
Never panic. Open one packet at a time. Clean and dry a place on your work surface (we often use a large cutting board). Unwrap the sheets and lay them out flat. Cover them with a clean, dry kitchen towel. And keep them covered as you continue with the recipe.
Fortunately, none of these desserts is so delicate that you need to hurry up for fear of ruining the phyllo. And since you’ll often work with coconut oil spray, you needn’t worry about the sheets’ tearing under a pastry brush. Besides, if a few sheets dry out and break apart, just piece them back together to form a single layer. However, save back a couple of perfect sheets for the top of the dessert, keeping those covered so they don’t dry out until you’re ready for them.
Working with Puff Pastry
Most standard supermarket brands are made with hydrogenated fat and come two sheets to a 17.3-ounce box. The recipes that follow were all developed and tested with these brands. However, there are artisanal brands available at high-end supermarkets. These usually offer one larger square sheet in each 14-ounce package. You’ll need to cut the square into two rectangles and roll each to a slightly smaller size before it begins to get overworked, about 11 × 17 inches—in which case you may also have some filling left over from the recipe. These high-end brands are also about triple the price, made with butter, and feature a more traditionally “laminated” dough with many, many more layers per inch. (The standard North American varieties tend to be cakier when they bake up.)
Puff pastry dough suffers from a type of Goldilocks syndrome: it must be neither too hot nor too cold when you roll it out. If it’s too cold, it will break. If it’s too warm, it will mush. Instead, it should be cool to the touch while still being firm. You should not be able to put your finger through it.
Puff pastry is particularly prone to freezer burn in self-defrosting freezers. As the temperature fluctuates to get rid of frost build-up, the fat in the pastry freezes and thaws, creating little clumps of doughy toughness that prove hard to roll out. If you see a great deal of frost on the outside of a package, find another in the supermarket’s case or take your business elsewhere. Follow the package instructions for thawing the pastry.
To roll out puff pastry, use more flour that you might imagine to dust both a clean, dry work surface and the dough sheet. Roll from the center out, keeping the pastry’s basic, rectangular shape as you expand it to the proper size. It will shrink back a bit as you roll it. Don’t worry—just keep at it. Flip it over at least once to make sure it’s not sticking and dust it again with flour. And get it to an approximation of the correct size, rather than the strict sizes required for pie crusts in this book. The puff pastry will shrink a bit as it bakes, no matter how perfectly you roll it.
And Finally …
These are the last desserts in a book about delightful excess. We wish you many celebrations in the years ahead, many times when you’re surrounded by enough people to warrant a sheet cake, a slab pie, or even one of our stranger curiosities. They often say that life is for the living. True enough. And the living are for each other.