Well it was another challenging day at college last week as we had the task of making danish pastries and croissants. I had attempted danish pastries before, but they weren't brilliant so I was looking forward to learning how to make them properly!
We worked in pairs, with one person doing the croissant dough and the other doing the danish dough. I had the job of making the croissant dough as I wanted to try my hand at something new.
Both danish and croissants are made from a yeasted laminated dough. Lamination is the process of folding and rolling butter into a dough to create thin layers. These thin layers of butter within the dough melt when baked, and the water inside the butter evaporates to give steam. The steam causes the pastry to puff up during baking, giving a light and crisp finish.
Making the dough is a rather lengthy process, as it has to be rolled and folded three times, letting the dough chill and rest inbetween each fold. Unfortunately, as we were slightly pushed for time, our dough wasn't able to chill for as long as it should so the butter became too warm and started to seep out of the dough. Nevertheless, we carried on as there was little we could do at this stage.
As I had not made croissants before, I was unsure of the length that the cut out triangular pieces of dough had to be, so mine were a little bit short and fat (not so good for rolling into cresents!). They were also quite heavy once baked, and didn't have the light airy interior that they should have. Our danish turned out to be slightly better, and I was particularly happy with the cinnamon swirls (my partner and I certainly didn't skimp on the cinnamon sugar!). Despite our initial butter-seeping disaster, the pastries were really quite tasty and I was pleasantly surprised.
Next week we have an assesment which involves making four types of danish pastry in three hours, so I certainly feel I need to have a little more practice before then....looks like we could have a kitchen full of danish fairly soon!
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