Danish Bread (Air baked)

I took a sudden interest in make puff pastry.   I guess with kids spending more time out of the house, I find myself taking on more challenges.

So today, I shall attempt a Danish Bread recipe.

I have done the dough last night and when I opened the fridge, I saw the lid of my container was not covering my dough well.   I was horrified to see that a layer of crust formed while I was proofing my dough in the fridge.  Not wanting to waste the dough, I proceeded on.

Was glad that despite butter starts oozing out, I was determined not to let that scares me.  I repeated more chilling time and layering.

I was happy to see nice layers on the dough when I cut it but I marred it by brush on egg wash onto the folds!  There goes all my layers. 😢

The bread was flavourful, I guess from all those butter but the texture is nice and soft and also a crusty top.  I shall see whether tomorrow it will yield the same texture.

Learning experience:

The flavour was really good but I am not happy with the crumb as it is not fine.  I am not sure how it should be but I will work on this again.

Taste-wise, this recipe is a keeper but I need to work on the layerings.

What you need:

240g bread flour

60g cake flour

15g whipping cream

3.5g instant yeast

1 tsp salt

40g sugar

1 egg

120g water

15g unsalted butter

120g unsalted butter.

Method:

Mark a piece of parchment paper with 10X10cm.  Double layer it.  Place the 120g unsalted butter on it.  Wrapped and using a rolling pin, bang to soften the butter to fit into the dimension.  Chill.

In a mixer, on low speed, combine bread flour, cake flour, whipping cream, instant yeast, salt, sugar, egg and water.  Knead to form a rough dough.  Increase the speed and knead to a smooth dough.

Add in butter and continue to knead to an elastic dough.

Remove and place in an oiled bowl.  Cover and chill for 8 hours.

Punch down the dough, roll into a square, place chilled butter in the centre and fold down as in the envelope fold.  Seal well.    Chill for 30 mins.

Press and roll into a rectangle.  Do a three folds.  Chill.

Press and roll 3 times more.

Roll the dough out into a rectangle.  Roll into a cyclinder.

Cut into halves.

Slit in the centre and insert one end into the slit.

Put it into a greased bread tin.  Let it rest for 45 mins.

Bake at 170⁰C for 30 mins.

Release from pan and transfer to cooling rack.

Enjoy!