Sunday, June 29, 2008

I am the champion......of the worllllllllllld! Danish Braid

Whoooooo, lordy it's hot here! Summer has arrived with a vengeance. We've gone from low 20's to high 30's practically overnight. As I write this on Sunday afternoon we are just a couple of degrees away from 40'C, which for you Fahrenheit people is 104'.

So my post on this months Daring Baker challenge is going to be short on words and heavy on photos. It's just too hot to think, and I am on Day Two of a Four Day Weekend (Woot!) and don't wanna be sitting at the computer.

Our hosts this month are Kelly of Sass & Veracity and Ben of What's Cooking?. Our challenge was “Danish Braid” from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking.

This is a two day recipe, and for the first time I made Laminated Dough - dough with layers of butter in between (like a baby version of Croissants). It was interesting and messy.
I guess maybe my butter was too soft or my dough needed more chilling time (although I followed the recipe) but the butter just squished everywhere on my first rolling. I threw it in the freezer for a while and the rest of the turn and rolls went much more smoothly.

The apple filling was to-die-for. If I'd been alone in the kitchen I might have eaten it all with a spoon.





I was absolutely thrilled with this recipe. It was straightforward, and other than sore hands from rolling the dough I had no problems. It tasted wonderful and I was very very happy with the look of it as well.

Recipe: Danish Braid

Thank you Kelly and Ben for such an enjoyable challenge this month!

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my sweets! What a lovely danish you have there!! Now get thee away from the computer and into a cooler place, toot sweet!!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Gorgeous braid Sara! Yes I found this one much easier than it looked and it looked gorgeous! And so good for breakfast with my coffee.
Go find the cool girl!

test it comm said...

Nice looking braid!

Unknown said...

WOW! How are y'all that hot? CRAZY! I really enjoyed this challenge as well. I was worried about the butter coming out but it didn't...maybe b/c I used 4 less tablespoons that called for...only b/c that's what I had! The bread was still flaky and just right with those 4 less T's. Your bread looks fantastic! Glad you completed it before the heat wave.

jasmine said...

How lovely.

I want to know where spring went...all of a sudden we too were in the high 30s.

j

Meeta K. Wolff said...

simply lovely! you truly are a champion!

mimi said...

beautiful braid! love the step by step photos.

Cynthia's Blog said...

If you are the king, I am the queen. I was glad to do this one too. Nice photos/

Peabody said...

Yours turned out great! I wish I had done the apple filling.

Jenny said...

What a beautiful braid you made!
And feel free to send some of that heat east to Ontario - we are having cool days alot, and a tonne of rain.

Deborah said...

I loved the filling as well. Great job!!

Amy said...

Beautiful braid. Great work!

Amy said...

Beautiful braid. Great work!

Dolores said...

Short on words is okay when your pictures are that compelling.

I dismissed the apple filling as boring and predictable... clearly I was wrong and I'll be trying that version in the fall.

Great job!

Dharm said...

Lovely Danish!! I had sore hands too so I'm happy to hear I wasnt the only one. :)

Lis said...

GOR! JUSS!!

Wow! Your braiding technique is perfect.

I hope you had a fantastic long weekend!

LOVE YOU!
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

JMom said...

your braids look great! I couldn't help eating spoonfuls of the apple filling either :)

Anonymous said...

Wow, your braid looks amazing! I too had the butter all over my rolling pin on one of my turns, and sore hands at the end. You did a great job. I hope your holiday weekend was relaxing.

Anonymous said...

Very Very visually appealing…great presentation

Jessica said...

Looks great!

Anonymous said...

This is just beautiful and really inspiring! :)