Test Kitchen #31: Danish

Holy Humongous Danish!

It has occurred to me that we've been doing a lot of baking in the past few test kitchens and after this week's bout with Danish, I'll be glad when we head back to savory cooking next week. Baking has never been one of my favorites. It takes too much patience and exact measuring. But it usually yields great rewards and sweet treats so I do my best to muster up my patience and dive in.

With the danish, it could have been the measuring or the waiting (or both) that led to the struggle. We started out with this recipe from allrecipes.com, which was supposed to yield 36 danishes. I had originally suggested we half the recipe thinking that we certainly did not need that many danishes hanging around the house. But Dad has adopted the familiar battle cry from both Matt and his brother Bob, "Go Big or Go Home!"

In the end, it was good that we didn't half the recipe. Something happened along the way between the rising and the baking of the dough, but these suckers wouldn't stop growing. Perhaps we added in too much yeast but I measured it twice to be sure. Anyway, what was supposed to be 36 ended up being about 12, with a few being some of THE most enormous danishes I had ever seen.

They started out like this:

And ended up like this!
(I could only fit about three on a standard sized dinner plate)

We filled them with apple or raspberry pie filling, but because of all the butter mixed inside the dough, some of them were too slippery to pinch closed. Many of them busted open inside the oven, exposing the filling.

The saving grace was drizzling them with a quick icing made from milk and confectioner's sugar. Everything can be saved with icing. Matt worked from home that day and was around to help us with the taste testing. Albeit a little funny-looking, they were sweet and flaky. Not a total flop, but I'm still ready for next week: A white pizza pie with caramelized onions and chicken!

Test Kitchen #30: Ultimate Cinnamon Buns

HAPPY 30TH RECIPE!

Boy, did that sneak up on us! After the moving drama and attempts at settling in, I didn't realize til this moment that our daring stab at making the Ultimate Cinnamon Bun would also be our 30th recipe. Wheww! Where did all those calories go?

Inspired by another episode of America's Test Kitchen, Dad was enraptured with their Ultimate Cinnamon Buns described as "unapologetically large." The pursuit of the recipe for these sinful treats proved a bit of a challenge. In the past, Dad has been able to find any of the ATK recipes he saw on TV on their web site. But this recipe, could only be located on the super secret "members only" (fork over $14.95) section of the web site. Oh yes, it's that good that they're lockin' that stuff up tight! So after signing up and entering in his credit card number, then realizing he signed up for the wrong membership, emailing the company to cancel his order, locating the right web page and joining the correct membership, Dad finally retrieved the coveted recipe.

They start out this big...

...and end up this BIG!

Being that he had to pay to get this recipe, I'm sure that means that the ATK people would be more than slightly miffed if I posted it here for all to get for free, so unfortunately, to protect the innocent I cannot post the recipe we used. (But if you happen bump into me in the grocery store and we get to chatting about any sweet baked goods and I just happen to mention some ingredients and maybe a few steps and you just happen to figure it out on your own... )

But who likes to read anyway! Let's just spend the rest of the this post staring at the pics or, as my friend Lisa puts it, trying not to lick the screen.

A guard dog hard at work.
K.C. may be blind, but the nose knows when something's in the oven.