Most "Danishes" bear little resemble to the pastry (wienerbrød) that I came to know and love on my mission in Denmark (I ate it every day--and gained about 40 pounds). Most Danish pastries are just bread with filling and a glaze. As a general rule, anything that calls itself "a Danish" isn't.) A true Danish pastry has flaky layers, like a croissant. In technical terms, Danish pastry is made from a "laminated dough." A laminated dough is created by alternating thinly rolled dough with thin slabs of butter. This type of preparation is common to croissants, brioche, Danish pastry, and baklava (which may be the ultimate source of this family of pastries). Most bakeries just don't take the time to do it right.
I've only found a few places outside of Denmark that have true Danish pastries: Larsen Brothers Danish bakery in Seattle, bakeries in Solvang, CA, a place we visited in Elk Horn, IA, and a few really nice bakeries in New York. Basically, where you find large concentrations of Danes, you typically find good Danish pastry. (Some day I need to try O & H bakery in Racine, WI. I've also heard good things about Andersen's in Santa Barbara.) The Danes claim that the pastry requires a certain technique, but they also claim that there is something about the Danish climate--the humidity, the altitude, the latitude. (In a similar way, New Yorkers claim that the secret to their pizza dough is New York's famous water--and the coal-fired ovens.) Seattle has the fortunate combination of good climate and a large concentration of Danes.
This is a roundabout way of saying that on the way from getting my hair cut to gassing up the car, I stopped off at Flour Girls & Dough Boys in American Fork to try their "baked from scratch" Danish. I saw these last time I was in, but only after I had already bought a brownie. Although the dough wasn't quite as flaky as the best I have had, their Danish pastry is certainly a cut above most and has the layers you would expect to find in a laminated dough. If you can't make it to one of the other places on the list, then give FGs&DBs a try. They obviously have the skills (Those chocolate croissants looked pretty good, and they use a similar technique.) They just need a more authentic Danish recipe (and perhaps a more conducive climate).
1 comment:
I thought the chocolate croissants looked better than they tasted. They were more like bread dough than pastry dough. Kind of disappointing, since I was hoping to have something like we used to buy at a French bakery around the corner from our flat in London.
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