Hi everyone! If you’ve been following along with recent recipes on our blog, you’ll know that we just shared a base recipe for wienerbrødsdej, or Danish pastry dough. Our recipe includes a YouTube video that gives detailed visual steps for each part of the process. In case you are new here (welcome!), wienerbrødsdej is the laminated and yeasted dough that is used to make a lot of Danish pastries, like kanelsnegle, tebirkes, and spandauer. It is also used to make today’s recipe, a wienerbrødsstang!
Wienerbrød is the name of Danish pastries in Denmark, and this translates to “Vienna bread.” This is because despite the popularity of “Danishes” all over the world nowadays, Austrian bakers were actually the first to bring this method of baking to Denmark. Once baked, the dough is super flakey, with delicious layers of butter that make the pastry just melt in your mouth. Think of the best croissant you have ever had – that’s the same type of dough as wienerbrød dough!
We now have two pastry dough recipe on our website: the 6 hour faster version and the original, overnight proofing version! Either one is delicious, and while laminating dough is a bit of a project, it’s a great activity for the weekend!
Danish Dough Spirals
A wienerbrødsstang is a long “stick” pastry that is filled with a marzipan, sugar, and butter filling. It is then topped with an egg wash and some flaked almonds and cut into slices. The end result is a sweet almondy filling encased in the most delicious layered pastry dough. Making it homemade is certainly not an easy feat, but it is a huge accomplishment and fit for the best bakery in the world! Try it out and let us know how it goes in the comments below.
This stick pastry is filled with a sweet marzipan filling and topped with chopped almonds! The result is a delicious and flaky pastry perfect for any occasion.
We always bake using a digital scale and the metric system (grams and milliliters). We can’t promise that our cup measurements will be as accurate! Additionally, we bake and develop our recipes in a convection (fan) oven.A couple of years ago my husband and I attended a week-long seminar at the John C. Campbell Folk School in beautiful Brasstown, North Carolina. The school is based on the Danish design of a “Folkehøjskole” which is a non-competitive setup and emphasizing on teaching practical skills. They offer classes in anything from Clay to Dance to Knitting to Music to Woodworking, and so much more. Your days at the Folk School are filled with many activities from sunrise to sunset, but although busy it is also relaxing and the school is set in an incredibly peaceful environment. Joe took Blacksmithing and I took Scandinavian Baking. The baking class was taught by Kim Hendrickson who was full of useful baking/cooking tips and who had answers to all of my 101 questions about yeast and baking techniques. It was a week filled with baking delicious treats, some of which I was familiar with and some which were new to me. I hope that Joe and I can one day go back to the Folk School for more classes for we had such a wonderful time there and we got to meet so many interesting people.
A New School Of Danish Is Taking Root
I have known Wienerbrød my entire life but I had never attempted to make it until my Folk School stay. Wienerbrød is a Danish specialty and outside of Denmark it is referred to as a “Danish”, but believe me, it is nothing like the Danish that you pick up at your local 7/11. Wienerbrød comes in many different shapes and with numerous types of fillings. There are two ways to make this dough, that I know of. The traditional way is to roll out the yeast dough, cover parts of it with thinly sliced butter, fold into numerous layers, roll out and repeat folding and rolling. This process of rolling and folding the dough with the butter is what gives the pastry a crisp and flaky texture. The second method is the “quick” method where flour and butter is combined in a food processor and pulsed until the butter is the size of kidney beans. You still have to roll and fold the dough several times and so I’m not really sure it’s any quicker, but the dough turns out perfectly. Wienerbrød is a time-consuming pastry to make but the outcome is super delicious and so if you decided to make it, I am confident that you won’t regret it. Please enjoy.
Update: This recipe makes 2 braids. You can easily freeze half of the dough for later use. Wrap dough in cling wrap, then wax or parchment paper and finally a freezer bag. When ready to use defrost in refrigeator.
Place flour into bowl of food processor with steel blade. Cut butter into 1/4 inch slices and add to flour. Pulse flour and butter until the butter is the size of kidney beans.
Quick Danish Pastry (viennabrod)
In a large bowl, dissolve active dry yeast in warm water (between 100-110 degrees F). Let stand for 10 minutes. Stir in the cream, cardamom, salt, eggs and sugar. Using a rubber spatula, turn the flour/butter mixture into the liquid and carefully mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours, overnight or up to 4 days.
Turn the dough out onto a moderately floured surface. Roll out dough to make a 16 to 20 inch square. Fold dough into thirds, rotate dough a quarter of turn and fold into thirds again, making a small square. Turn over dough. Repeat rolling and folding another two times (making it a total 3 times of rolling and folding). Ending with a small square, wrap dough and chill for 30 minutes or overnight.
Divide the chilled dough into two parts. Roll each part into a 6 x 12 inch rectangle. (If not making both braids at the same time, wrap the second half of dough and place in refrigerator until ready to roll out).
Vienna Bread Recipe
Spread filling down the length of center of each rectangle. Cut slanting strips at 3/4 inch intervals along both sides towards to center. Fold strips over the filling in a criss-cross manner. Place both braids onto baking sheets and let dough rise for 15-30 minutes until pastry appears puffy. It will not double in size. Lightly beat the egg and water for the glaze. Once dough has been allowed to rise, brush the pastry with the glaze. sprinkle with pearl sugar and/or almonds.
Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. To make icing, mix together powdered sugar, warm milk and almond extract. Drizzle icing on top and let set before cutting. Enjoy!
Posted in Breakfast, Danish, Dessert, Pastry | Tagged braid, Campbell, Danish, danish pastry, dessert, folk, folk school, J C Campbell, John Campbell Folk School, kim hendrickson, pastry, scandinavian, school, wienerbrød, yeast | 41 CommentsSometimes shortened to just “Danish” the popular Danish pastries are most well known for being, well, Danish! The flaky layers and fruity fillings are staples at most bakeries, but this delicate pastry wasn’t actually created in Denmark.
Bba#39: Vienna Bread
During the 1850’s Danish bakers went on strike and the bakery owners were left scrambling to satisfy their customers. Their solution was to recruit bakers from Austria who brought with them a new technique of pastry making, which included adding layers of butter and repeatedly folding and chilling the dough. This is called the Viennese lamination, and the resulting pastry was called wienerbrød(Vienna bread) as a nod to its origin. The resulting flaky pastries were an instant success.
Note: This recipe uses about 340 g of butter for about 700 g of flour which gives about 50% butter (using baker’s percentages). Ægte weinerbrød usually has a butter content of 50%; it should have a butter content no lower than 40% and no higher than 60%.
Mix all ingredients from this section in a bowl, cover, and let sit for about 5 minutes. If your yeast is still alive, it will become foamy or frothy within a few minutes.
Classic Danish Pastry Dough
Start working on the dough. Start with 5 cups of flour and mix thoroughly with a dough hook; add the rest slowly until you have a good consistency (Tt should be somewhat wet or sticky to avoid a dough that springs back too much when rolling out.)
Place dough in a covered bowl and let rise until doubled in size (roughly 1 hour). After that, punch down the dough.
Roll the sticks of butter into a 12”x10” rectangle between sheets of wax paper. Chill until firm (30 minutes in the fridge works perfectly because frozen butter is problematic to roll).
Homemade Danish Pastries
Place one butter slab in the center of the dough, and fold one-third of the dough over the butter (leave a 2” border around the butter).
Place the second butter slab on top of the dough that you have just folded over the first slab, and fold the final third of the dough over this slab.
Gently roll the dough out so the dimensions are about 1x3, and fold the dough into thirds. Cover the dough, and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Repeat this 3 times.
Wienerbrød (danish Pastries) In Copenhagen
At this point, we have a
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