Apple Danish

Last weekend, for DD2's birthday, I made an apple danish for breakfast.  Now, before I show you pictures, let me say I wasn't going for beautiful food.  I had a few spots where the crust was too big and instead of cutting off the excess and throwing it away (or feeding it to the chickens), I just folded it over the top and the crust was extra thick in those spots.  My family likes it that way.  So remember, this is real food made for real people, not gorgeous food for a magazine spread.

Making a danish is pretty simple if you have made pie before.  It's very similar to pie making.  You have a bottom crust, you have a filling, and you have a top crust.  At the end, you put on a glaze before serving.  Pretty simple.  Like pie making, it is kind of time consuming, so it's something you probably don't want to do on a day when you have to be up, fed, and out the door early.  Give yourself a good hour and a half between when you start making the danish and when you want to serve the danish.

Here's the recipe I used:

Crust

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

scant cup lard (say, 1 cup less about 2 Tbsp)

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup milk

In medium mixing bowl, combine the salt and flour. Cut in the lard until mixture forms small crumbs.  Then combine your egg yolk and milk, and pour those into the flour/salt/lard mixture.  Stir until dough clumps together.   If your dough is a bit sticky, sprinkle w/flour.  Also coat your hands with flour before picking the dough up, then divide dough in half.

On a lightly floured surface, roll one half of the dough into a 15" x 10" rectangle.  Transfer that to a greased 15" x 10" x 1" baking pan.

Filling:

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 Tbsp flour

1 tsp cinnamon

6 cups sliced, peeled apples

1/4 cup melted butter

In another medium mixing bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, and cinnamon.  Add the sliced apples and the melted butter, then stir well.  Spread the seasoned apples evenly over the dough that is in the baking pan.

Take the other half of your dough, roll it out to 15" x 10" and carefully place it on top of the filling.  Trim edges if desired (or just fold any long spots back into pan).

Glaze:

1 egg white

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2-3 tsp water

Now, lightly beat your egg white, and brush it over the top layer of dough.

Bake the danish at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until golden brown, as seen below.

just out of the oven, nicely browned on top

Let cool for at least 10 minutes before making the decorative glaze by mixing the powdered sugar and water until it is a drizzling consistency.  With a spoon, drizzle glaze over danish in whatever pattern you wish.  The hotter the danish, the more the glaze with thin and spread.

with glaze dribbled over top after cooling slightly

This tastes wonderful served warm, but is equally delicious eaten cold the next day.  It makes quite a lot, so you should have leftovers, unless, of course, your hubby and kids keep snitching pieces of it for a snack all day long.  Not that anyone at this little place here ever does that, no. . .