Flaky layers of buttery crisp pastry filled with a zingy lemon curd, and topped with a sweet raspberry make in my view the perfect breakfast or brunch to enjoy with a really good coffee.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not a lover of faff unless I have time, so save making these for a weekend, they’re not a quick fix brekkie! But without doubt you’re going to thank me once you’ve tasted them.
These are traditionally filled with crème patissiere, which is really quite lovely but I’ve substituted it for a lemon curd for two reasons… 1. The zingy flavour gives a nice contrast to the buttery pastry and 2.The recipe makes an extra jar for you to pop in the fridge and slather on toast when you’ve demolished all the pastries… I’m all heart like that!
Makes about 18
Danish pastry dough Ingredients
500g strong white bread flour
9g fast action yeast
70g unrefined caster sugar
250g (1 block) salted butter
7g fine table salt
260g tepid milk (full fat)
Lemon curd ingredients
Zest and juice of 4 large unwaxed lemons
200g caster sugar
100g butter
3 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
About 18 raspberries for topping
Lemon drizzle icing
4 tbsp icing sugar
A good squeeze of lemon juice
Method
1.lightly bash and evenly roll out your block of butter between 2 sheets of parchment to a neat rectangle 30x15cm, lay it flat in the fridge to chill.
2. set up a stand mixer with a dough hook and add flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and eggs along with half the milk. Keep adding more milk until you have a soft dough. (It should take all of it but some flours are more absorbent than others.) allow to mix on medium speed for 10 minutes.
3.wrap dough in cling film and put in the fridge to rest for a couple of hours with the butter rectangle.
4. remove dough from the fridge and roll it flat (about 1/3 longer than the butter rectangle.)
5. place the butter over 2/3 of the dough and bring the dough over 1/3 of the buttered section, then fold it over again, this will give you 3 dough layers and 2 butter layers then pinch or crimp the edges so the butter doesn’t squidge out when you roll it again….are you still with me?
5. wrap again in clingy and pop in the fridge for ½ an hour.
6. give the dough a quarter turn so its horizontal to you, roll out again to a rectangle and fold into 3, wrap and chill for ½ hr.
7. repeat the turning, rolling and chilling 2 more times then double wrap in cling film and refrigerate overnight.
While your dough is tucked up for the night in its refrigerator bed, you can make the lemon curd.
Method for curd
Put the sugar, lemon juice & zest and butter in a dish over simmering water and mix until the sugar has dissolved and butter melted. Don’t allow it to get too hot.
Now add the beaten eggs and yolk and whisk for a good ten minutes, you’ll see it will thicken beautifully.
You can sieve the curd if you like it smooth but I quite like bits of zest!
Store in a sterilised jar in the fridge for the morning.
Good Morning… It’s Danish pastry day! So pre heat that oven to 200c
8. now you can now get your dough out of the fridge and roll out to about 8mm thick, and cut into neat 8cm squares.
9. slit each corner about 5cm into the centre, then fold the corner to the middle making a star or pinwheel shape.
10. place them on about 3 parchment lined baking sheets with room to grow, and pop the whole tray into clean bags to prove (rise up) this will take about 2 hours in a warm house, 2.5hrs in a cooler house.
11. once your dough has doubled in size, put a dollop of chilled lemon curd in the middle and top with a raspberry.
Put in your preheated oven 200c for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
12. allow the pastries to cool and mix the icing, drizzle over and enjoy!
You can experiment with different toppings with the basic dough... make them sweet or savoury. I would love to hear what you've done.
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