Something Rotten Sensational from the State of Denmark...

At least if *my* audience reaction is any indication.

I give you the image moments before the gang dove in...


And when they cleared from around the table so that I could take another picture...


But I'm getting ahead of myself here...

It all started early in the month, when Kelly of Sass & Veracity and Ben of What's Cookin' (my most recent T&C partner, for those of you paying attention) tossed down the gauntlet to over a thousand Daring Bakers: in the heat of the summer (at least in most of the northern hemisphere) we'd be testing our skills with a yeast based laminate dough as we baked the Danish Braid.

For the pastry, they chose Sherry Yard's Danish Dough from the Secrets of Baking. For the filling we could use Ms. Yard's apple compote or branch out in any direction we wanted, as long as it was of our own creation.

As is typical for me, I spent the majority of the month contemplating what I might wrap my braid around. Prosciutto and parmesan? Apricot in a lavender and honey pastry cream? Cherries jubilee? Strawberries and vanilla cream? Bacon, eggs and potatoes? Chiorizo and egg? Mushrooms, shallots and goat cheese? An endless stream of ideas, all of which sounded promising.

On last Thursday afternoon I pulled out the ingredients for the pastry, no clearer idea of what I'd fill it with than I'd had at the first of the month. I mixed and kneaded and refrigerated and rolled and refrigerated (and caught three back episodes of Good Eats). I was generally quite pleased with the results of my efforts at the end of the fourth turn as I put my dough into its overnight hibernation. I loved the flecks of color provided by the vanilla bean, cardamom and orange zest, and although I have no previous experience working with laminate dough beyond opening the frozen Dafour package, it just *felt* right as I was working with it. Soft, silky, elastic but not rubbery.

Friday evening arrived quickly (though not as quickly as desired in some aspects). I still had no clear direction on how to fill my braid. But it was to be our contribution to a potluck picnic for which we'd need to leave by 9 AM on Saturday. My window for decision-making was narrowing quickly.

After some discussion, John and I decided on a simple smoked salmon and spiced cream cheese filling. Off to the always-open grocery we went. Sorry folks... at T minus less than 12 hours, I wasn't going to be smoking my own salmon. When we got back, John read the recipe (for the first time) while I pulled the dough out of its cryogenic hibernation. There was some discussion and some shared concern about whether the salmon would work with a sweet dough, but at this point we were committed or should have been.

The recipe said the near refrigerated dough should be left to proof for 3 hours before baking. I decided to throw caution to the wind... I covered it with plastic wrap and left it on the counter as we headed to bed shortly after midnight.

I got up at 7 Saturday morning, preheated the oven and surveyed the damage. Lo and behold, what were logs of twisted dough when we retired on Friday actually looked *sort of* like braids in the early morning light. Hallelujah!

I baked off the braids according to the instructions given in the recipe and left them on the counter to cool as we got around and prepared for the day. We tented them loosely with foil as we headed out the door. When we got to the bocce picnic, I shot a couple of pictures in natural light and quickly sliced one of the braids and set it out by the coffee as people hovered, curious. The second picture above is the remnants of the first braid as I prepared to replace the platter with the second.

Hey Mikey, they LIKE this. I'm clearly going to be making these again. As I repeated the story of my month-long quandary with the recipe and the Daring Bakers, I got at least a dozen requests for several different versions, and some tips for slicing and icing sweet Danish pastry from a sweet senior citizen who'd grown up in a bakery in Canada. Marion's not terribly internet savvy, or I suspect Ivonne & Liz would have another new non-blogging Daring Baker in July...

Thank you Kelly. Thank you Ben. This is probably my best Daring Baker experience to date. I tried something new. I learned a ton. My braid looked gorgeous. AND it tasted great. A four star experience.

To see how over a thousand other Daring Bakers fared with this recipe, check out the blog roll.

From the archives...
In 2006 I collected recipes from around the blog world.

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