This recipe, like the doughnuts with crème diplomat and raspberry jam recipe  (and like any other pastry recipe where you make the dough from scratch), requires you to invest quite some time in it but let me tell you, these are some of the best Danish pastries I’ve ever had. The photos don’t do them justice, they were exceptionally good!

Step by step recipe below and list of ingredients at the end of the post!

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Prepare the dough the day before using ideally. Place the flour, caster sugar, salt, softened butter, yeast, milk and egg in a mixing bowl and use your hands to combine them all together into a rough mass.

Tip the mass onto a clean work surface and knead for 12–15 minutes. The dough should be developed and kneaded till it is smooth and elastic. Every couple of minutes, take 30 seconds rest – the dough will be quite firm, but don’t be tempted to add more liquid to it as then it will be too soft later on. You can knead the dough using an electric mixer with a dough hook instead of by hand. Once the dough is fully kneaded, place in a lightly oiled container and allow to ferment at room temperature for 1 hour.

Place the extra butter for rolling between two sheets of plastic wrap and use a rolling pin to knock the butter into a square 1 cm thick (approximately 15 cm x 15 cm). Chill (it needs to be firm but malleable).

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and roll into a square 1 cm thick (approximately 25 cm x 25 cm). Place the butter onto the dough with the corners of the butter just inside the straight sides of the dough (I wasn’t able to roll the dough into a square so I just ended up improvising by turning the square of butter into a rectangle).

Fold the corners of the dough into the centre of the butter, encasing the butter fully. You should now have two layers of dough and one layer of butter inside the dough layers.

Roll the pastry into a rectangle, to approximately 1–1.5 cm thick. The length should be approximately three times the width.

Now imagine the pastry divided into three parts. Fold one end of the pastry two-thirds of the way towards the other end.

Then fold the other end over the first fold to give three even layers. This is called a ‘single turn’.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Repeat the rolling and folding and chill for another 30 minutes. Repeat one more time; you should now have given the pastry three single turns. Chill the pastry for a further 30 minutes before preparing and assembling for cooking.

To prepare the toasted almond cream: pre-heat oven to 150°C. Spread the ground almonds onto a baking sheet and toast for 5–8 minutes or till just changing colour. As you can see from the photo I did this on a frying pan instead of in the oven. Allow to cool fully.

Beat the softened butter with sugar till light and creamy. Beat in the egg a little at a time, so as not to curdle the mixture.

Add the toasted ground almonds and flour and mix till fully mixed in. Place in a piping bag.

To make the crème pâtissière: bring the milk to the boil.

Meanwhile, whisk the cornflour and sugar together, then add the egg and vanilla and whisk until smooth.

When the milk has boiled, gently add it to the egg mixture while whisking briskly. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and bring back to just boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat immediately and add butter, mixing really well so all the butter is incorporated. Place a layer of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the crème (or place directly in a piping bag), and refrigerate.

To finish: pre-heat the oven to 220°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Remove the pastry from the refrigerator and roll out to a final thickness of 4–5 mm. Use as little flour as possible to roll it out.

Cut the edges and then cut the pastry into 10 cm squares.

Place the pastries on baking trays. Pipe a ring of almond cream in the middle of each square. Fold the corners into the middle and press down firmly, to prevent them popping up during baking. (I made a few smaller squares with the leftover dough from cutting the edges in the previous step). Cover lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise for approximately 1–1.5 hours.

Then, very gently brush with beaten egg. Press the centre of the pastry in (it will deflate slightly). Pipe in a blob of crème pâtissière and top with fruit.

Bake for 20 minutes, turning the trays around halfway through to make sure pastries bake evenly, until deep golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.

Transfer to a wire rack and dust with icing sugar before serving.

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Danish Pastries

From The Great New Zealand Baking Book, copyright © The Clareville Bakery

Makes: 18 | Prep time: hour, plus rising | Cook time: 20 mins | Skill level: 3 (challenging)

Ingredients

Danish Pastry Dough

Makes: 1 large quantity dough | Prep time: 45 mins, plus fermenting & chilling

• 500 g ‘00’ or bakers flour
• 50 g caster sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 20 g butter
• 1 tsp (6 g) yeast
• 250 ml cold milk
• 1 egg
• 250 g butter for rolling

Toasted almond cream

• 50 g ground almonds
• 50 g butter
• 50 g caster sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 20 g plain flour

Crème pâtissèrie (pastry creme)

• 250 ml milk
• 20 g cornflour
• 60 g sugar
• 1 egg
• few drops of vanilla extract
• 30 g butter

To finish

• 1 egg, beaten
• drained cherries, apricots, pears, plums or berries, halved as necessary
• icing sugar, for dusting

Method

Prepare dough the day before using. Place all dough ingredients (except butter for rolling) in a mixing bowl and use your hands to combine them all together into a rough mass. Tip mass onto a clean work surface and knead for 12–15 minutes. The dough should be developed and kneaded till it is smooth and elastic. Every couple of minutes, take 30 seconds rest – the dough will be quite firm, but don’t be tempted to add more liquid to it as then it will be too soft later on. Once dough is fully kneaded, place in a lightly oiled container and allow to ferment at room temperature for 1 hour. Cover and chill in the refrigerator overnight.

Place extra butter between two sheets of plastic wrap and use a rolling pin to knock the butter into a square 1 cm thick (approximately 15 cm x 15 cm). Chill (it needs to be firm but malleable).

The next day, tip dough onto a lightly floured work surface and roll into a square 1 cm thick (approximately 25 cm x 25 cm). Place butter onto dough with the corners of the butter just inside the straight sides of the dough. Fold the corners of the dough into the centre of the butter, encasing the butter fully. You should now have two layers of dough and one layer of butter inside the dough layers. Roll pastry into a rectangle, to approximately 1–1.5 cm thick. The length should be approximately three times the width. Now imagine the pastry divided into three parts. Fold one end of the pastry two-thirds of the way towards the other end, then fold the other end over the first fold to give three even layers. This is called a ‘single turn’.

Cover dough with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Repeat the rolling and folding and chill for another 30 minutes. Repeat one more time; you should now have given the pastry three single turns. Chill pastry for a further 30 minutes before preparing and assembling for cooking.

To prepare the toasted almond cream: pre-heat oven to 150°C. Spread ground almonds onto a baking sheet and toast for 5–8 minutes or till just changing colour. Allow to cool fully.

Beat butter with sugar till light and creamy. Beat in egg a little at a time, so as not to curdle the mixture. Add almonds and flour and mix till fully mixed in. Place in a piping bag.

Crème pâtissière: bring milk to the boil. Meanwhile, whisk cornflour and sugar together, then add egg and vanilla and whisk until smooth.

When milk has boiled, gently add it to the egg mixture while whisking briskly. Pour mixture back into the saucepan and bring back to just boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat immediately and add butter, mixing really well so all the butter is incorporated. Place a layer of plastic wrap directly on the surface of crème, and refrigerate.

To finish: pre-heat oven to 220°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Remove pastry from refrigerator, divide into three and roll each piece out to a final thickness of 4–5 mm (30 cm by 20 cm for each piece). Use as little flour as possible to roll it out. Cut pastry into 10 cm squares. Pipe a ring of almond cream in the middle of each. Fold the corners into the middle and press down firmly, to prevent them popping up during baking.

Place pastries on baking trays. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise for approximately 1–1.5 hours. Then, very gently brush with beaten egg. Press the centre of the pastry in (it will deflate slightly). Pipe in a blob of crème pâtissière and top with fruit. Bake for 20 minutes, turning trays around halfway through to make sure pastries bake evenly, until deep golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Where to buy the book:

Bookreps New Zealand

Whitcoulls

Paper Plus