As far back as I can remember my Mom made danish at Christmas. The danish are yeasty, buttery delights, drizzled with a warm caramel sauce and eaten warm from the oven. My sister and I each make the Christmas danish now and email or call to keep each another up to date on how the danish are going. She lives in Galveston, Texas and is dealing with heat and humidity while trying to keep the butter from oozing out of the danish. Here in the wilds of northern Indiana we’re not dealing with heat or humidity now.
Making the danish doesn’t take a lot of work, but it is spread out over a couple of days since you have to roll and then chill the dough several times. Here’s the recipe (click here for a printable version.)
Makes way too many, 3 or 4 dozen
Plan on starting the day before you intend to cook them.
Ingredients
Danish
1 1/2 cup butter [1]
1/3 cup flour
2 packages yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 cup scalded milk [2]
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
4 cups flour, more or less
Icing
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons milk, half and half, or cream
powdered sugar
Process
Let the butter soften and then cream it with the 1/4 cup of flour
Pat and roll the butter/flour mixture between sheets of wax paper to a 12 inch by 6 inch rectangle
Chill in the refrigerator until hard, several hours.
Combine the 2 packages of yeast with 1/2 cup lukewarm water
Combine 1 cup scalded milk, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 t salt and let cool to lukewarm
Stir yeast mixture and 1 egg into the milk mixture
Mix in 4 cups of flour, more or less, until you have a bread-like dough.
Knead until glossy. (I use a dough hook on a stand mixer)
Roll the dough into a 14 inch square
Put the chilled butter on one side of the dough and fold the other half over it and seal the edges.
Roll the dough to 20 inches by 12 inches. Work carefully and quickly so the butter does not poke through the dough.
Fold into thirds, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for several hours.
Repeat the roll, fold, and chill steps two more times. After the last roll leave it at 20 inches by 12 inches.
Heat[3] your oven to 400 degrees
Cut the dough into strips 12 inches long and about 1/2 inch wide. Shape. I usually just tie the strip in a loose knot.
Let rise until doubled. (Won’t take long. You can shape them and put them, covered, into the refrigerator if you want.)
While rising make the icing by cooking the butter and sugar until the sugar is melted.
Stir in the milk
Stir in powdered sugar until you have a spreadable yet liquid consistency
Cook the danish at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes. Watch them carefully at the end. They should be lightly browned when done.
Drizzle with icing.
Eat immediately.
1. Butter. Not margarine. Not anything but the best butter you can find. If you have an issue with butter this is not the recipe for you.
2. You know I’m an old man if a recipe from my childhood calls for scalded milk. That’s something you never see in recipes these days. In ye olde days you scalded milk to kill bacteria, which is not necessary in our hypo-allergenic, anti-bacterial world today. To scald milk you heat it just until tiny bubbles form around the edge of the pan. I still do it for this recipe.
3. I’m on a mission to remove “preheat” from the recipe lexicon. What does it mean to “preheat?” How is that different from “heating?”
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