Danish, Danish, Danish.....

I've had a danish filled week!

In Bakeshop Production, we had our only Laminated Dough week, which was both wonderful and sad all at the same time. I've been so spoiled in my dedicated Laminated Doughs class because we make everything entirely from scratch, where as in Bakeshop, due to time constriction, we worked entirely with commercially-made dough.

I really do understand that many restaurants and bakeshops have to rely on commercially-made dough, because the process of laminating is so long and laborous. But I love the laminating process and it seemed like the flavor was just not quite the same.....

So, we made turnovers with commercial puff pastry.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, there are some really funny people in my class, so we’re continually laughing.

We were able to choose what shapes we wanted to do, as well as which fillings to use. I used entirely blueberry because it is one of my favorites.

The turnovers looked really beautiful before going in the oven. Unfortunately, the commercial puff pastry acts differently than the puff pastry we’ve made in Laminated Doughs..... It really puffed unevenly and failed to hold my designs I cut. Plus, several of my edge seams opened. And then I wasn’t completely thrilled with the flavor afterwards..... I’m afraid I’m getting really really spoiled by the products we’re making my dedicated Laminated Doughs class. I even forgot to take a picture of our final turnovers!

After the turnovers, we also made danish. Even though I’m in laminated doughs and pastries, we haven’t yet done much danish (later in the semester we will). So it was interesting to see how the different danish shapes are made.

We filled them with various pie fillings and then some cream cheese as well, if we wanted. Here’s how I chose to make- up my danish...

Then, after they were baked, Chef demonstrated glazing with an apricot glaze.

One especially fun thing about this class is that although we were working with commercially made dough, Chef did let me help demonstrate how a laminated dough is created. So, I made a half batch of our normal Croissant dough from Laminated Dough class and we mixed it, proofed it, and did a partial lamination in class.

Everyone in class thought the products we made were amazing. And yes, they did taste okay... probably better than things you might buy in a store... However, I’m getting spoiled and now would much rather not have to use commercial products, if I can help it, in the future.

So, after the Bakeshop laminated class, I was really happy to go to regular Laminated Doughs. And let me tell you, we made some AWESOME products this week.....

One extra help we had this week was that we had final laminated dough all ready to go, so we just had to concentrate on making fillings and cutting the dough into the correct shapes.

We made Apple Fontains, which have also been called “El Baños" by Chef Jeff’s previous classes. Hopefully I've spelled that right.... I'm a former French student, not Spanish...

The name “El Baños” comes from the shape of the dough, if it’s cut on the square and not on the diamond. See the above right and see if you can figure out the name :) They’re suppose to look like “fountains” hence the original name.

Then, we proofed the dough and made apple filling (by cooking apples in South Carolina Cotton Honey and a little cream) before filling the fontains. Delicious!

Here’s an image of one of my classmates adding some “Snow” garnish to her Fontains.

We also made a Streusel Danish with Sour Cream Pastry Cream, Apricots and a Cherry.

The apricots were torched a bit before baking to give them a nice caramelized effect.

I wasn’t quite sure what I would think of the sour cream pastry cream, but it was really delicious.... The sour cream just gave it a slightly lighter taste.

Then on top of the pastry cream, we added the caramelized apricot (with a cherry in its center) before baking them.

Next came the Cranberry Apricot Scrolls.

These were probably the easiest of the ones we made on Friday, but they also are one of my favorites (although it's very difficult to choose due to the fact that they were all extremely delicious!).

I’ve had a similar pastry before, only raisins were used in place of dried cranberries. I’m usually a big raisin fan, but I do admit that the cranberries were pretty delicious too....

And last, but not least, were the Banana Coconut Cream danish.

We made a delicious coconut cream mixture and piped it onto croissant dough, topped it with some banana slices, and proofed it.

After they had risen, we added some banana and coconut garnish on top before baking them.

Yummy too!

There simply is no comparison between the flavors of the commercial dough and the dough we make. Absolutely no comparison.

Is your mouth watering yet? :)