Danish Pastry Dough

Here is installment two of my laminated dough series: danish pastry dough. The recipe is adapted and veganized from Williams Sonoma's Essentials of Baking. It is basically an enriched and yeasted laminated dough--I used Tofutti cream cheese to enrich the dough, but you could use a flax egg or just forget about it altogether. Since the dough has yeast it is a little less forgiving than puff pastry in that it can't hang around in the fridge for days. The great thing is that you can form the pastries and freeze them, unbaked, then thaw and bake them later. More on that in my next post!

INGREDIENTS
Dough
- 19 to 21 oz all purpose flour
- 4 1/2 tsp instant yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup warm water
- 1 cup warm plain soy milk
- 3 tbsp Tofutti cream cheese
- 1/2 tsp vanilla

Margarine Block
- 1 cup Earth Balance margarine (not the whipped kind)
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour

METHOD
1. Whisk 19oz of flour with the yeast and salt. Heat water, soy milk, and cream cheese together until warm and whisk until smooth. Add to the flour with the vanilla and bring together into a dough. Add as much flour as is needed to make a smooth and soft dough. It should not be sticky, but can be slightly tacky.
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 10 x 16 inch rectangle (I like to do this on a pastry mat). Square everything up as best you can. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for 30-40 mins, or until well chilled.
3. While the dough is chilling, make the margarine block. Use the method described here, but make the block 8 x 7 inches. Keep cool until ready to use.
4. Laminate the dough: with the short side of the dough towards you, place the margarine block on the lower half of the rectangle, leaving a 1 inch border. Fold down the upper half, then seal the dough. Take our time to seal everything properly. Place the folded side to your left, then roll into a 12 x 20 inch rectangle. With the short side towards you, fold the bottom third up, then the top half down. Refrigerate for 15 mins.
5. Repeat step 4 three more times, then refrigerate for at least one hour, or until very well chilled, before making pastries.

NEXT TIME: Danishes and Pinwheels!