Binging with Babish: Raspberry Danish from Ant Man & The Wasp

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. From websites and online stores to marketing and analytics tools, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for creating a beautiful online presence and running your business. - Who would have thought that once again, in your hour of need, that you would turn to us, you know? - I admit it. - Mmmm, help yourself. - Hey, what's up with fancy cakes? We have to keep the food budget low. - Well, what are we supposed to have for breakfast? - The oatmeal packets. - Oatmeal packets. - Hey, what's up guys?

Welcome back to Binging with Babish. For this week, we'll be taking a look at Ant-Man and the Wasp's elegant cake, which of course is just a touch of Entenmann's Raspberry Danish. Now, of course, I live on earth with the heart and intelligence of a human being. So I love Entenmann's. After all, it's basically sugar that you can chew, but as I'm sure any Dane will tell you, it's quite a far cry from Danish pastry. It's very soft. It's extraordinarily sweet and for some reason it has streusel. And again, it's delicious. So I don't really feel the need to improve it.

And I freely admit that this episode was just an excuse to surprise my girlfriend, Jess, with her favorite cupcake, the Raspberry Danish. But I think I can do it from time to time. So let's dig deeper. The first thing we will need is very French and very high quality butter. Ideally you would use French butter because it actually has a higher melting point than other butters. We followed a King Arthur flour recipe. So, in the bowl of the stand mixer goes 659 grams of all-purpose flour, of which, of our 450 grams of unsalted butter, we're going to take about 30 grams or two tablespoons and work it into the flour with our fingers like if we did. making a pie crust.

Apparently this coats the flour with a little fat, which makes the dough more tender, but I don't know if that's true. We also add 67 grams of sugar and 12 grams of instant yeast. Beat lightly until smooth and then it's time to add the wet. 75 milliliters or about a third of a cup of warm water and 230 milliliters of whole milk, cold and refrigerated. We also added about three grams or a teaspoon of vanilla extract and two large eggs because Danish dough is very similar to croissant, but instead of a lean dough, it's a very soft, enriched dough, which makes it much more forgiving.

Anyway, we're going to mix it with 15 grams of kosher salt and mix it until it's combined and there are no dry spots left in about two minutes. The result will be a very sticky dough that we are going to cover and let rest, while we prepare our butter squares. You heard me right. Butter squares, not squares. On two sheets of parchment paper we place the remaining halves of our 450 grams of butter and with the help of a rolling pin and our repressed rage, we mash until we achieve a thickness of approximately one or two centimeters. Then we open the parchment paper, folding the butter in half, flouring it as necessary and mashing again.

A total of four times or until the butter has the consistency and rigidity of Play-Doh, meaning you can almost fold the entire thing in half without breaking it. We rinse and repeat with the other half of the butter and voila, our two rectangles of butter, which we are going to reserve, while we generously flour our counter, we obtain our enriched yeast dough. Use a bench scraper to form a rectangle, about the same size as our butter rectangle, and roll it out to about three times its width and a few inches taller so it can perfectly envelop the butter.

We will place the first pat in the center of the dough and then fold one side over it, making sure to cover it and not stretch it. Then we'll place the second rectangle of butter on top and give them all a thorough dusting to make sure there's no excess flour because as we fold the remaining third of the dough into the butter, we want everything to stick together, which will emphasize pinching the edges to close them. And there you have it, puff pastry with two layers of butter, but now we are going to perform the task of laminating, that is, rolling out the dough to approximately the same width and height as it had before.

Once again, removing the excess flour and folding, once again in thirds, like a booklet, a pastry booklet for pastry experts. I had to get out the thesaurus for that one. And just like that, we have six layers of butter, but we're not done. We'll wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 20 minutes before unwrapping it and rolling it out one more time, folding it into thirds, and rolling it out one more time. So expect six times three times three. Let me do the math real quick. My calculator tells me that there are 54 layers of butter, which we will wrap in plastic and let sit in the refrigerator for between four and 16 hours, before cutting them into the desired portions and rolling them out for final assembly, which in our first attempt to recreate the vibe. of Entenmann, we will cut it into a rectangle.

I want to imitate the dimensions of the Entenmann as best I can. That's a tongue twister. So I'm going to measure a rectangle about 13 by six inches because I anticipate it will shrink about an inch in each direction when it bakes. I then cut three one-inch-wide strips, remove any excess flour, brush my strips with a beaten egg, and place one strip in the middle of the rectangle with two strips flanking it on either side. I hope this gives us the two types of

raspberry

channels that come with Entenmann's Danish touch. Then we'll place this on a rimmed baking sheet and cover it with greased plastic wrap and let it sit for an hour.

To make our cheese filling, we combine 100 grams of cream cheese and ricotta, along with a whole egg. I'm kidding. Remove the egg from its shell. 35 grams of sugar and a generous pinch of kosher salt. Sorry, little beater. This is not a job for you. Now, you could easily whip this up in a stand mixer, but I was feeling that special kind of laziness where doing the hard thing somehow feels easier than taking out the easy to do the easy thing. Then we recover our proofed dough and pour both our cheese mixture and a little

raspberry

jam into the channels.

And in this case, it is better to opt for store-bought raspberry jam. I tried making my own and it's too runny. Brush everything with a beaten egg and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 to 18 minutes and do not bake on the top rack. or you'll get these weird specks instead of the nice, uniform golden brown you're looking for, but it's still totally edible, so we'll make a glaze with a lot of powdered sugar mixed with just a little skim fat. milk. So that it's not too runny, as you know, this one is. Then I try to imitate Entenmann's strange enamel pattern.

It is shaped like a rainbow and I cut it and serve it. And I have to say, this just doesn't work for me. It's totally delicious. But I think the shape was developed for factory optimization and there is nothing artistic about it. And Danish pastries are an opportunity to enjoy cakes with beautiful designs. So let's roll out another half batch of dough to a thickness of about a centimeter and try the ever-popular Danish braid. This involves cutting the dough into a rectangle and then making diagonal cuts on the sides of the dough about two centimeters wide and leaving a space in the center of the dough about the same width as the length of the strips.

Did that make any sense? No? Well, make it look like a Christmas tree. We then placed our cheese and raspberry jam mixture along that center strip, folded the top of the tree down over the filling, and then sandwiched the branches that folded them diagonally over the filling alternating from left to right, creating a picturesque pattern. known as Danish braid. Tuck the bottom flap under the last two strips. Cover with greased plastic wrap for one hour. Now, like I said, you generally don't want to use homemade jam. I did it and experienced some leaks, but it wasn't a big deal.

Brush with an egg wash and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 to 18 minutes. This time on the middle rack. This way you will get that perfectly golden cake that will haunt your dreams when you are at a gas station and want to have breakfast. Once completely cooled on a wire rack, drizzle with glaze, slice and serve. And I have to say, as far as long, sliceable pastries go for a crowd, this is the one you want, but if you really want to explore how pretty Danish pastries can be, you just need to roll them out and cut them into equal pieces.

Grid. And on these squares, you will build your church with my favorite patterns, simply fold them in half diagonally and place two cuts on the sides of the dough leaving a space at the end. Remove excess flour. Separate the two flaps you created on each side and fold them over each other. So that the Danish is known as, I don't know what it's called, let's call it the pointy and twisted one, which when you make it, you'll first need to brush it with a beaten egg, both to give it color and to make it all stick together. to all.

Next, what I can only imagine is called a pinwheel. Make four cuts in each corner, leaving a space in the center, brush with beaten egg and fold half of each triangle towards the center alternately to form a pinwheel. Next, a fairly complicated one that has great benefits. We will make 90 degree cuts in each corner of the dough, leaving a space between them. Brush with beaten egg yolk and fold the now loose corners toward the center of the dough, creating what I'll call the corner cut crazy carnation. Then, the easiest way of all, basically, just brush the thing with egg yolk and fold each facet of the square toward the center to create what I call the lazy crumple-doo.

Next, we can do a miniature version of our Danish braid. Basically, do everything I said above, but to a lesser extent. Place the first material, place the rest, brush with beaten egg and fold until everything is integrated into an elegant eclair. And last but not least, what I wish I hadn't done on camera because it exploded, just grazed the side of the square and folded in on itself, like an open Danish donkey. We then filled our still-unfilled pies with dollops of cheese and raspberry jam and, as usual, baked at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 to 18 minutes until golden, puffed, and picture-perfect.

Except, you know, this guy, who I warned you about, I told you, he's a troublemaker, but everyone else looks great. To ensure it stays crispy, we cool it completely on a rack and then drizzle it with our slightly thicker drizzle. Otherwise it just disappears into the dough and eventually we start digging and I think this is the way to make Danish. Not only is it pretty, but it's smaller. Therefore, it can be puffed more and the dough can be baked more evenly. It is halfway between a croissant and a brioche. It's jam, cheese and just the right amount of sweet.

And he's a member of the clean Jess club. This episode and many others have been sponsored by Squarespace because they have been an incredible partner in bringing this show and my websites to life. They have a really intuitive and easy to use platform that made it very easy for someone like me who has never done web design. They have templates, they make domains. They have very good customer service. It's basically a one-stop shop for creating a really slick website. If you want to try it out yourself, you can start your free trial today by visiting squarespace.com/babish to get 10% off your first purchase. (upbeat music)