Homemade Danish Pastry Dough (with Video Tutorial)
Have you ever wanted to make homemade Danish for a special breakfast or brunch? Start with my easy Danish Pastry Dough! I've broken the recipe down to be super-simple and there's even a video tutorial so you can follow along. You're moments away from the most butter-y, flaky, fruit-filled treat ever!
I am declaring this the summer of bucket-list baking!
Is there something you've always wanted to try? But maybe you've been a little afraid? Maybe there are a lot of steps, or maybe it's just a little bit complicated?
I've got lots of items like that. Some I've yet to tackle and a few that I took the plunge on. Know what I've found, most times? It's not nearly as bad as we build it up in our minds to be.
Every time I've ever had a Danish at a coffee shop or bakery, I've always been a little let down. They always seem to be a bit heavy, and kinda soggy. There's only one solution, and that's to make it homemade, from all the best ingredients, and fresh from the oven.
But ugh. I had heard about that butter square. How you have to create a square of butter, encase it within a yeast dough, and roll and fold it over on itself a hundred times to get all those flaky layers. Are you kidding me??? The though of it was exhausting.
Well, I finally just got up and did it. And guess what? It wasn't hard at all. The dough itself is as simple as mixing dry with wet, and the butter square took me all of about five minutes. Nothin' to it!
The final product is light as air and super butter-y. I used the best ingredients I could get my hands on, including Irish butter from Kerrygold. What an incredible result! The flaky layers are to-die-for. On Friday I'll tell you all about the filling and garnishes, so stay tuned!
I do a lot of talking in this video tutorial. I'm not really sure how I feel about that, but rather than typing out the step-by-step, I'm just going to let it speak for itself. I hope you enjoy, and let me know if you give this a try!
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Ingredients
- 1 cup (227 g) cold unsalted butter, (2 sticks)
- 2 ¾ cups (343.75 g) all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 ¼ teaspoons (1.25 teaspoons) kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons dry active yeast
- ½ cup (122 ml) milk
- ¼ cup (62.5 ml) warm water, (like a baby's bath)
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
Instructions
- Cut a half a tablespoon of butter off the ends of each stick of butter, and set aside.
- Cut each stick of butter in half, then cut each half stick lengthwise.
- Line up 4 butter rectangles side by side on a sheet of lightly floured parchment.
- Dust with flour, and fold the parchment up and over the butter.
- Use a rolling pin to lightly pound/roll the butter to a thickness of about ¼-inch.
- Repeat with the remaining 4 butter rectangles.
- Refrigerate the parchment-wrapped butter squares.
- Place the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine.
- Cut in the reserved tablespoon of cold butter, rubbing between your fingertips to fully incorporate.
- In a large liquid measure, stir the milk, water, egg, and vanilla together.
- Add the liquid ingredients into the dry and stir together.
- Knead the dough for approximately 7 minutes in a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and roll/pat into a rough rectangle shape. (Ideally, the short side of the rectangle should be about the same length as the long side of the butter square in step 2. The long side should be about 3x the length of the short side of the butter square.)
- Place one of the butter squares in the center of the dough rectangle.
- Fold one side of the dough over the butter, and top with the remaining butter square.
- Fold the other side of the dough over the second butter square.
- Pinch the sides of the dough together to encase the butter within the dough.
- Roll the dough out to a thickness of about ½-inch, then fold the dough into thirds, like a letter. Repeat, two more times.
- Wrap loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or for a minimum of 1 hour).
Any chance you can do the recipe by weights? I've found almost every recipe comes out different because everyone measures things differently, i.e. flour, sugar, etc. I've wasted more flour and sugar because I use weight and even almost every blogger uses different weights with their recipes. Thank you so much.
Yes if you'd like to view the recipe by weight, just click the "metric" button just below the list of ingredients.
I’ve made your danish dough 3 times now! Our local bakery closed due to Covid. I was trying to find a recipe that would get me close to their danish. Ha - This is better than theirs! Not hard at all. Thanks for the video . I wouldn’t be able to do it without you!!
Question - how long can the dough last in the fridge? There are only two of us and this yields more than we need.
So glad to hear you like it! You can keep it in the fridge for up to 48 hours, or in the freezer for up to 2 weeks. Thanks for the great feedback!
I’m in Canada and our butter doesn’t come in sticks. It comes in 1 pound blocks. In fact, I don’t think it comes in sticks anywhere but the US. You need to modify your instructions to include this.
Thanks
My instructions include metric and imperial measurements, as well as noting the number of sticks. Is there a fourth way of measuring that I am unaware of?
I like it but I CNT see the video so it is hard for me to follow the instruction s carefully
Can you make this dough ahead of time and freeze it until you are ready to use it?
It will probably keep in the freezer for a few weeks but after a very long time the yeast will most likely die. Good luck!
Made this last weekend, my husband loved it ! I used a traditional cream cheese filling.
Very easy recipe to follow, I am used to making puff pastry so I chilled the dough between turns.
And baked them for 20 min at 400°F. Was a great balance of soft and flaky.
Thank you for sharing
My pleasure Lison! I'm so glad you and your husband were pleased with the recipe. Thanks so much for the great feedback!
Hi Allie ,
I tried making the dough and as I was rolling it out after adding the butter squares the butter made a mess all over the dough . What do I do to fix it and how can I avoid this happening next time .
Thank you
Sounds like your butter was too soft! It needs to stay very cold. Hope you have better luck next time!
Best Danish Dough recipe I have tried so far! I will keep using it and recommending it to others. I very much appreciate the nutrition information that you included. My son is diabetic so we use the carb counts to see how much insulin he has to take. Again appreciated!!!!??
It's my pleasure Tammy! I'm so glad you were happy with it. Thank you so much for the positive feedback. Wishing you and your son all the best!
How do I find the rest of your homade Danish pastry. Can’t locate the baking time and temperature needed to complete recipe. Unknown where to find the next Friday end to the recipe.
Hey Mary! There are a few easy ways to track that down. You can just enter "Danish" into the search window at the top of the site, or you can click to the recipe index and look under "D" for Danish. You could also just google "Baking a Moment Danish." It should pop right up with any of those options. Good luck and enjoy!
I learned something and then felt a bit like an idiot. So it was going really well at the point of placing the butter squares on the dough and fold all still going really well and so it’s summer here in Sacramento ca and even though it’s late evening it’s too hot in the house my butter melted and I have a buttery ball in the fridge. I hope I can salvage the dough tomorrow and will definitely do it agai. Thanks for the recipes.
So sorry you're having trouble Liz! This is one of those pastry recipes where it's really important everything stays cold. I think if you chill it in the fridge there's a good chance it will recover though! Good luck!
Baking times?
This recipe is just for the dough- but I have a filled Danish recipe you can refer to here: https://bakingamoment.com/blackberry-ginger-danish-pastry/.
Hi, this recipe looks lovely and I can't wait to try it! One question: would you recommend putting the dough into the fridge after each turn or just doing all three turns at the same time? Thank you!
Thanks for the great question Adri! If you work fast and the butter doesn't begin to soften, you should be able to complete all the turns in one go. If your environment is very warm and it seems like the butter is melting, then it's a good idea to refrigerate. I hope that's helpful! Good luck and enjoy!
I know it’s been a while since this has been posted, but I’m curious about how many danishes this amount of dough will make, and if I could half the recipe, if need be. Thank you! I’m eager to try this recipe!
Hey Kati! It's right there on the recipe card, under yield. It makes 18 danishes. You can halve it if you want to- you'll just have to weigh out the egg since there's only one. Good luck and I hope you enjoy!
Hey Allie! I just love your recipes! Especially this one. I have made it twice so far and both times it came out delicious. Your video is very helpful!!
I just have a quick question, when I roll out my dough, it doesn't seem like I have as much as you in the video so the dough either is too thin or not big enough to cover the butter squares. Would this have to do with too much kneading or not enough? Or something else? I follow the recipe exactly so just trying to figure it out so I can get it right next time 🙂
Hey Brittany! So glad you like the recipe! I'm not quite sure what the problem might be there. Is it possible to make the butter square a little smaller/thicker?
Hi there! What would the substitute be for the vanilla bean paste? Can’t wait to try these! 🙂
Allie: My mother was Danish and I spent my summers in Denmark back in the 1960's/1970's. Danish pastry in Denmark is called Weinerbrod or Viennese Bread. The sodden doughy mess here in the US is nothing like authentic 'Danish' The best reference recipe I have ever found tastes 100% authentic is from a Time/Life series book called the 'Cooking of Scandinavia'. It is out of print but can be found on EBay. If you look for the book make sure you get both the hardcover book and the accompanying spiral bound recipe book. The rich custard, remonce (marzipan filling) are spot on. I make this Danish 1-2 times per year as a Christmas morning gift to my neighbors. Also I make the thin sheet of butter and use a cheese slicer, I trace out the rectangle and place the pattern under a sheet of plastic, I then slice off the butter and fill the rectangle. Use lower moisture 'european' style butter. Lurpak, if you can find it. has a unique flavor and is 5-6% less water than American style butter. Odense also makes the best almond paste.
That's terrific Alyson! I believe we spoke about this before in another comment thread on this same post. Thanks so much for all the great info!
My mother was from Denmark and I was always looking for a recipe for Danish Pastry that was authentic to the taste of the danish I rememnber in Denmark as a child (by the way the Danes call it 'Weinerbrod' or Viennese Bread). I ran across a recipe that is terrific and totally authentic in an old Time Life Series Book 'The Cooking of Scandinavia'. If you are really interested try to get yourself a copy of this book. It gives excellent instructions and tastes 100% like the real thing, nothing like the American version. Cardamon and the type of butter are the keys. Use their instructions for pastry cream and remonce or almond paste filling as well. You can find the book on Ebay. Just be aware there were actually two books, one was the hard cover book and there was an accompanying spiral bound recipe book. Try to get them both, they are a wealth of information. I still have family in Denmark and they tell me unfortunately the bakeries are slowly going away and the Danes, like Americans are loosing a valuable national treasure. As a child (1960's/1970's) my grandfather and I used to walk to the bakery every morning and pick up freshly baked french bread, tebirkies and a danish rye bread. The 'Weinerbrod' were a special treat reserved for Sundays. These days I make Weinerbrod twice a year, Christmas and Easter and bring them to the neighbors. Also be aware the fillings were not as sweet as American jams. I usually cook up fresh and dried fruits to get the fruit filling flavors. Apricot and Strawberry is my favorite. If you are interested contact me via email and I can send you a copy of the recipe. I too am a former pastry chef.
That's wonderful Alyson! I just loved reading your comment, and learning all about authentic Danish Weinerbrod. So interesting, and such a shame that this national treasure is slowly becoming lost. I'd love to see your recipe and know more. Thanks so much for reading and for your kind offer 🙂
Tried to send you the recipe via an email, didn't work, do you have another email address I could try. Please respond via my email, thanks, Aly
Sorry I didn't receive your email this time but you have actually already sent me the recipe. We spoke at great length on this topic a few months ago. Thanks again!