Danish pastry

A Danish pastry, sometimes shortened to just Danish (especially in American English), is a multilayered, laminated sweet pastry in the viennoiserie tradition. The concept was brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers, and has since developed into a Danish specialty. Like other viennoiserie pastries, such as croissants, it is a variant of puff pastry made of laminated yeast-leavened dough that creates a layered texture.A slice of a kringle with remonce, a type of Danish pastry common in DenmarkSeveral types of Danish pastry in a bakery in Denmark.Pecan and maple Danish from FranceArgentine facturas with dulce de membrilloDanish pastries in the Philippines'At one point during his career Mr. Gertner befriended a Danish baker who convinced him that Danish pastry might be well received in New York. Mr. Gertner began serving the pastry in his restaurant and it immediately was a success.' A Danish pastry, sometimes shortened to just Danish (especially in American English), is a multilayered, laminated sweet pastry in the viennoiserie tradition. The concept was brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers, and has since developed into a Danish specialty. Like other viennoiserie pastries, such as croissants, it is a variant of puff pastry made of laminated yeast-leavened dough that creates a layered texture. Danish pastries were brought with immigrants to the United States, where they are often topped with a fruit or cream cheese filling, and are now popular around the world. Danish pastry is made of yeast-leavened dough of wheat flour, milk, eggs, sugar, and large amounts of butter or margarine. A yeast dough is rolled out thinly, covered with thin slices of butter between the layers of dough, and then the dough is folded and rolled several times, creating 27 layers. If necessary, the dough is chilled between foldings to ease handling. The process of rolling, buttering, folding, and chilling is repeated multiple times to create a multilayered dough that becomes airy and crispy on the outside, but also rich and buttery. Butter is the traditional fat used in Danish pastry, but in industrial production, less expensive fats are often used, such as hydrogenated sunflower oil. In Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, the term for Danish pastry is wienerbrød (or wienerbröd), meaning 'Viennese bread'. The same etymology is also the origin of the Finnish viineri.In Vienna, the Danish pastry is called Kopenhagener Plunder, referring to Copenhagen, or Dänischer Plunder. The origin of the Danish pastry is often ascribed to a strike amongst bakery workers in Denmark in 1850. The strike caused bakery owners to hire workers from abroad, among them several Austrian bakers, who brought along new baking traditions and pastry recipes. The Austrian pastry of Plundergebäck soon became popular in Denmark and after the labour disputes ended, Danish bakers adopted the Austrian recipes, adjusting them to their own liking and traditions by increasing the amount of egg and fat for example. This development resulted in what is now known as the Danish pastry. One of the baking techniques and traditions that the Austrian bakers brought with them was the Viennese lamination technique. Due to such novelties the Danes called the pastry 'wienerbrød' (Vienna bread) and, as mentioned, that name is still in use in Northern Europe today. At that time, almost all baked goods in Denmark were given exotic names. Danish pastries as consumed in Denmark have different shapes and names. Some are topped with chocolate, pearl sugar, glacé icing, and/or slivered nuts and they may be stuffed with a variety of ingredients such as jam or preserves (usually apple or prune), remonce, marzipan, and/or custard. Shapes are numerous, including circles with filling in the middle (known in Denmark as Spandauers), figure-eights, spirals (known as snails), and the pretzel-like kringles.