Danish Puff

The thing about these old recipes is that often I have no idea what the recipe looks like.  I don’t know if I’ve had the dish before because I don’t know the names of everything I’ve eaten.  It’s the same with me for music.  I know lots of songs, but can’t tell you titles of most of them.

Which gets into the whole misheard lyrics thing.  So quick sidebar, about 2 years ago I heard that the song “Little Red Corvette” was coming on the radio.  I was a kind of excited because I was actually going to hear what that song was.  I had known about the song for ages, but never knew what the song was.  Except when it came on, I totally knew the song.  I had just always thought that when Prince sang “Little Red Corvette”, he was singing “Feeling coming back”. I guess that would be a proper response to the song to “I Can’t Feel My Face.”

Reigning myself back in here, Danish Puff.

The big lesson here is that sometimes cooking is about improvisation.  When teaching the kids to cook, I have oft repeated “read all the way through the recipe before you get started”.  Normally I follow my own advice, but days had passed between my original reading of the recipe and then life happened.  There was also the stinging nettle incident.  When it came time to actually make the recipe, my head was no longer in the game.  And there was the nagging sensation that I should be starting dinner instead of making pastry.  

I made the pie dough, but wasn’t sticking together properly.  Adding more cold water didn’t help.  I know how pie crust works.  You want to add just enough water to hold it together.  Something in my head said that it needed more fat. I added two sticks of butter when I put it together because of the way the recipe was written.  After I had done that I noticed the instructions called for only one stick.  I had skipped the part where it said to only put half the flour in the bowl for the crust.  The other half was used for the filling.  Crap!  And by now the dough was getting to the point where I was sure it was overworked, but how do you add butter after the fact?

I got out the food processor, added everything back in there with a bit more flour and tried again.  This time the dough was smooth and pliable.  It was easy to roll out into oblong shapes.

It’s amazing what happens when you read instructions.

I still needed to double the filling to compensate for the doubled crust.  At this point I was hoping the recipe would come out at all and taste halfway decent because, otherwise, that’s a lot of wasted ingredients.  And considering I was flying blind with this recipe…

Reading the recipe, I got the idea that it was pie crust with choux pastry spread on top.  You have eaten choux pastry as a cream puffs or eclairs.  It’s rich and eggy and if you don’t let the steam out, it deflates and gets sort of creamy inside.  That was exactly what it was.  There was nothing sweet about the pie crust or the choux, just richness, a bit of crisp, the almond flavor.  The sweetness came in from the glaze poured all over the top.

The recipe said to bake the Puff between 350° and 400° for about 50 minutes.  I opted for 375°.  The pastry on the darker pan on the top rack took about 5 minutes less than the pastry on the pan on the bottom rack.  Despite not having directions, I made the powdered sugar glaze.  I wasn’t sure how much to make. I guessed and used about a cup or so of powdered sugar and just enough water to make it smooth. 

Frankly, it’s delicious.  We snacked on it before dinner, since I neglected to make dinner until the Danish Puff baked.  We also ate it as a snack after dinner, for breakfast this morning, probably some for a snack later on. It may benefit from some slivered almonds sprinkled on top just for that added crunch.  One might consider whether or not it needed something spread between the layers of pastry.  No one would complain if I made it again.

The Recipe:

Danish Puff

1 cup (2 sticks) margarine
2 cups flour
1/4 t salt
2 T cold water
1 c. boiling water
1 t. almond extract
3 eggs
powdered sugar icing

1. Cut 1/2 cup margarine in 1 cup flour and salt until resembles coarse meal.  Add cold water and stir until blended.  Divide dough in half and press each half into an oblong on an ungreased baking sheet.
2. Place boiling water and remaining 1/2 c margarine in saucepan.  Bring to boil. When margarine is melted add flavoring and remove from heat.
3. Immediately stir in remaining 1 cup flour.  Beat mixture smooth and add eggs one at a time beating well.  Spread over pie pastry.  Bake 350-400 about 50 min.  Frost cakes while hot.  Cut into slices and serve warm.

16 servings

For other delicious desserts try Kringla, Apple Butter Cake, or Corn Flake Bars.

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