Elegant Pastry Dessert
Almond Danish Puff is an elegant and surprisingly easy pastry dessert. With a handful of everyday ingrediants and a few minutes of strong stirring you can wow the family or serve this at a Baby Shower, church function, or clubhouse pot-luck.
The base layer is a butter shortcrust topped with an almond choux pastry and lightly glazed with icing or powdered sugar and sprinkled with toasted almonds. Choux is magical in this pastry. Only you will know how fast and easy it went together.
There are just a couple of tricks to make the pastry dessert successful:
1. Use a pastry cutter instead of a fork to make the shortcrust. The less you work the dough the better.
2. Have ALL your ingredients measured and ready to go before you turn the heat under the pot for your choux. You won’t have time to measure and pour.
3. Less is more when it comes to the icing. I like a thin drizzle to hold the nuts in place.
Almond Danish Puff
Ingredients
Pastry
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tbsp water
Choux Pastry
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 cup flour
- 3 eggs
Glaze
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp butter melted
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 to 2 tbsp warm water
Topping
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°
Pastry
- Cut 1/2 cup butter into 1 cup flour. Sprinkle 2 tbsp water over mixture; mix with fork. Round into ball; divide in half. On parchment paper covered ungreased baking sheet, pat each half into strip 12 x 3 inches. Strips should be about 3 inches apart.
Choux Pastry
- In saucepan heat 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup water to a rolling boil. Remove from heat and quickly stir in almond extract and 1 cup flour. Stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add eggs; beat until smooth. Divide in half; spread each half evenly over strips. Bake about 60 minutes, until topping is crisp and nicely browned. Cool.
Finish
- Frost with Glaze and sprinkle generously with nuts.
Nutrition
Jazz it up
There isn’t a lot you can do to make this recipe better but here are are a couple of options:
- Toast your almonds in a pan before sprinkling on the dessert. It adds color and a nice flavor.
- Use less icing and finish with a dusting of powdered sugar right before serving. There is no sugar in the dough or pastry so you can always add a bit more to the top.
Special Notes:
The original inspiration for this recipe comes from a 1970’s cookbook – I’m still trying to track it down or find it in the attic.
