Quick Danish Pastry dough is based on the same technique I found for making faster croissant, without sacrificing any quality. I have used that method for all my laminated doughs including puff pastry, cronuts, and Kouign Aman. This technique cuts way down on the time and it's much easier to incorporate the butter without the dreaded breakthrough of butter when rolling out.
Bread flour is preferred for laminated doughs as it has more strength than all-purpose. It can rise higher and obtain a crispness that all-purpose doesn't have. See my blog, A Discussion of Laminated Doughs for more information. Another preferred ingredient is American butter instead of European Butter. American butter is not as soft as European butter and holds up much better when rolling and shaping.
Scandinavians are particularly fond of the spice, cardamom. It comes as a seed and ground. I use the ground and, because it is expensive, I keep it in the freezer and not in my spice cabinet.
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The photo at the top of the page is the Danish Butter Cake which looks a lot better than the raw dough. It is filled with everything wonderful - Danish pastry, remonce, pastry cream, and a bit of chocolate. Definitely not your everyday coffeecake.
Next Week
Next week I will be posting a Danish Butter Cake which uses this pastry and pastry cream as well as remonce which includes100 grams or 3 ½ ounces of almond paste. This Danish Pastry, as well as the pastry cream, can be made ahead and frozen. Just thaw for one or two days in the refrigerator.
I will be posting the cake next Thursday which gives you time to make the two items and buy the almond paste. The rest of the ingredients are very common and most likely on your shelf.
Note about ingredients
One note: You can substitute all-purpose flour if the only thing you will use the bread flour for is this recipe. The cardamom is optional but really good. You could also make one of these every week and use up the remainder of the bread flour! Just a thought.
Quick Danish Pastry
¾ cup unsalted butter (170 grams, 6 ounces or 1 ½ sticks)
2 ¼ cups bread flour* (315 grams or 11 ounces)
¼ cup granulated sugar (50 grams or 1 ¾ ounces)
2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast (1 packet, 7 grams, ¼ ounce)
¾ teaspoon cardamom, optional
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup water
¼ cup milk, room temperature or slightly warmed
1 large egg
*All-purpose flour can be used but bread flour is preferred.
Cut the butter into small pieces and freeze.
Place the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a processor. Process about 5 seconds to mix.
Whisk the egg, water, and milk together. 
Pour it over the dry ingredients and process until the dough comes together into a ball. 
Process for 30 seconds more until it balls up.
Knead by hand 5 or 6 times to smooth out. Flatten into a disc about ½ inch thick. 
Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for about 2 hours or until it is frozen about an inch in from the edge. Do not freeze the entire disc.
Cut the dough into fourths. Cut each fourth into 3 pieces making 12 pie-shaped wedges of dough.
Place 4 wedges and ⅓ of the frozen butter into the processor bowl.
Process until the dough and butter are cut into various size pieces no larger than the size of kidney beans. 
Pour onto a work surface. 
Repeat twice more with the remaining ingredients.
Push the dough into a rectangle, about 10"x6".
Dust the work surface with flour and roll the rectangle to about 6" x 18".
Brush any flour off the surface of the dough and fold the top and bottom to the center. 
Fold the top down make a book turn. The butter will look very ragged at this point. That's as it should be. 
Turn the dough package 90° with the seam on your right.
Scrape the work surface with a bench scraper and dust again with flour. Repeat the rolling and folding of the dough twice more. You can see how the butter in now incorporated and the finished dough is smooth and not raggey looking.
Wrap in film and chill for several hours if using immediately or freeze, well wrapped up to a month.
Dough weights about 490 grams or about 17 ⅕ ounces.
Bruce says
My bread flour had bugs in it, so I made it with AP flour. This is my first time making this dough, but I've made your croissant dough a few times, and this one rolled out more easily - maybe something about the sugar in it. It's all laminated and in the refrigerator, ready to make a batch of Quarktaschen (German cheese Danish) tomorrow, because there is a small cheesemaker right here in the city of Cincinnati that makes Quark. I've made them once before, using your croissant dough, because I never thought to see if you had a Danish pastry dough (silly me!). It's been a while, so I can't remember whether I might have added some sugar to that dough, but I don't think I did.
Helen S Fletcher says
Hi Bruce - I haven't compared the recipes but my guess is the Danish has more liquid in the recipe which would make it easier to roll out. Love the recipe you're making.
Mary A Diebold says
Anxious to try this method. I would love to try it for Kouign Aman. I will need to find the recipe. Thank you for blogging this recipe.
Mary
hfletcher says
Hi Mary - this is not a good recipe for Kouign Aman. Go to this one on my blog....https://pastrieslikeapro.com/2016/09/stuffed-or-not-kouign-amann/
Mary A Diebold says
Thank you
Mary says
I am loving your detailed instructions and will try to make the Quick Danish Pastry along with you.
I discovered a pkg of Almond Paste already in my cupboard, so I'm set for that, but, I would like to know more about the difference between "Almond Paste" and "Marzipan", because the two terms often seem to be used interchangeably, and I would love to hear your explanation of them.
hfletcher says
Hi Mary, Almond paste is the base for marzipan. They are not the same but I agree the names are used interchangeably. Marzipan has additional sugar and usually egg white added to it. Marzipan is used to make a number of things including beautiful hand made roses and often, around Christmas, molded figurines or fruit.
Elle says
Can’t wait to try this, Helen. It would be helpful if you’d list a few recipes where you especially love using the dough. Thanks.
hfletcher says
Hi Elle, As stated in the article under Next Week, I talk about this being a 2 part blog with the Danish Butter Cake being made with this dough. I list a couple of things that need to be done ahead to make it.
Elle says
Thanks, Helen. I’m eager to see the Danish Butter Cake, but I’m not a huge fan of almond paste, so any other suggestions alternatives for using this would be appreciated.
sallybr says
Oh I will be trying this method! it is just fascinating... it is very tricky to speed up the process without sacrificing quality but you can face any challenge! ;-)
hfletcher says
Hi Sally - This is the method I use to make all my laminated doughs now including Kouign Aman. It's the Scottish method of incorporating the butter without the "package".