Danish Puff

The thing about these old recipes is that often I have no idea what the thing I am making is supposed to be like.  I have no idea if I’ve had the dish before because I don’t know the names of everything I’ve been served.  I do the same thing with 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 you can’t take yourself too seriously and you have to be able to correct things while cooking.  One of the biggest things that I tell the kids about cooking is “read all the way through the recipe before you get started”.  I followed my own advice, but I read through the recipe the day before or something and then life happened and there was the stinging nettle incident and so when it came time to make this recipe, my head wasn’t exactly where it probably should’ve been.  Plus, I knew that I should’ve been starting supper instead of making pastry.  I made the pie dough, but wasn’t sticking together right.  I added more cold water, but it just didn’t seem right.  I know what pie crust is supposed to be like and that you want to add just enough water to hold it together.  Something in my head said that it needed more fat. I had put in two sticks of butter before because of the way the recipe was written, but noticed in the instructions that it called for only one stick.  I had skipped over the part where it said I only needed to 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 and loaded 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 needed to double the filling to compensate for the doubled crust.  At this point I was just hoping the recipe would taste good 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.  Choux pastry is the stuff that cream puffs and eclairs are made out of.  It’s rich and eggy and if you don’t let the steam out, 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.  It also didn’t specify how to make a powdered sugar glaze, but I already knew how to do that, I just didn’t know how much needed to be made. 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 had that as a snack before dinner, since I had neglected to make dinner until the Danish Puff was done cooking.  We also had 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.

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