Pear and cinnamon Danish

Hello dear reader,

I have an unhealthy admission to make.  A few years ago when I worked in Edinburgh and commuted in from Fife, I had to be out of the house before 7am and never gave myself enough time for breakfast.  I got into the habit of popping into a little bakery on my way to work to grab a coffee and a Danish pastry which I would eat on the way to work.  Occasionally I would branch out to try various other Danish pastries but invariably I always came back to my favourite – the swirled ones with fruit and a spicy-buttery slightly gooey filling.  Not very healthy to be eating daily!

Pear and cinnamon Danish

Nowadays I tend to eat healthier but, as you know, I still believe in treats too – just not every day!  When I saw that the Breakfast Club blog challenge this month is Fruit, my mind immediately jumped to the Apple & Cinnamon Danish pastries that I love.  However, with a bowl full of pears in the house, it was time to tweak the recipe to swap in pears and I think it works very well.  It is a little sweeter, so stick with apples if you prefer.

Proper Danish pastry dough is quite unique and can be worth making.  However it is an overnight process, as the dough needs to be chilled thoroughly after being made.  I usually cheat and use ready-made Puff pastry – it probably wouldn’t fool a Dane but it’s good enough for me!  For an even easier option, buy pre-rolled pastry!  One tip though – do always read the list of ingredients if you buy ready-made pastry, as some of them are chock full of unnecessary additives!

So, on to the how-to!

1) Firstly, line and grease a baking sheet and pre-heat your oven to moderate hot (200°C, 400°F, Gas Mark 6).  In addition to about 320g puff pastry, you will need 2 pears, 50g sultanas, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 50g butter and 100g brown sugar.

Pear ingredients

2) Chop the butter into small cubes and mix with the sugar, squashing the butter in with a  fork…

sugar and butter mix

3) Peel and core the pear and chop into small pieces.  Then mix with the sultanas and ground cinnamon…

Pear mix

4) Roll out the pastry to form a rectangle about 25cm x 30cm and spread with the sugar-butter mix…

Puff pastry sheet

5) Sprinkle the spiced pear mix on top…

Spread pear mix

6) Starting at a long edge, roll as tightly as possible into a long log-shape, pushing in any mixture which falls out.  Cut off the ends if they have no filling in them.  Then, using a sharp knife, cut widthways into slices about 2.5cm wide…

Cut pastry

7) Carefully lift each slice and place it onto the pre-prepared baking tray.  If any filling falls out, squish it back in…

Place on baking tray

8) Bake in the pre-heated oven until golden and crispy.  This will take 15-25 minutes, depending on how juicy the pears are.  If they are very juicy, you may need to pour off excess juice after about 10 minutes.  Don’t worry about the burnt juice on the tray – the pastries will easily peel away from this.

Baked Danish

9) Leave in the tray to cool slightly whilst you make the icing.  Place 100g icing sugar in a bowl and gradually add about 6 teaspoons of milk until you get a thin paste…

Icing mix

10) Drizze the icing over the Danish pastries and leave to cool completely. You can use a spoon to do the drizzling but I tend to get big blobs of icing, instead of nicely drizzled lines when I do that!  To get nice thin drizzles, pour the icing into a plastic food bag; squish it down to one corner; fold over the excess bag so you can squeeze the icing; snip a tiny corner off; and start drizzling!

Iced Danish

11) Serve!

Stack of Danish pastries

Try to eat only one at a time!

Pear and cinnamon Danish

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As I said at the start, I am entering my Pear & Cinnamon Danish pastries into the Breakfast Club bloggers challenge run by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.  It is hosted this month by Michelle at Utterly Scrummy, who has chosen “fruit” as her theme.

Breakfast-Club-logo

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The Alphabakes bloggers challenge run by Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline of Caroline Makes has a letter as its monthly theme.  Ros is hosting this month and the letter is C for cinnamon!  Also, since these Danish pastries are made from scratch (buying puff pastry is allowed – phew), I’m sending them to the Made with Love Mondays challenge run by Mark at Javelin Warrior’s Cookin w/ Luv.

AlphaBakes Logo

Made with Love Mondays

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So, tell me dear reader, what is your favourite Danish pastry?

Vohn

x

P.S. My apologies for the poor lighting in most of my pictures.  I haven’t worked out how to take good photographs now we have lost the summer light.  Any tips would be gratefully received!

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9 comments

  1. Grumpy loves pears! This danish would be a delicious treat to make him this weekend.

    • He’ll love it! I must make it again soon myself!

  2. I’ve never made my own Danish but really should give it a go. I love the combination of pear and cinnamon – makes a change from apple and cinnamon. Thanks for entering AlphaBakes.

  3. These look so tasty & I think I’d enjoy the pear vs. apple – especially since you so rarely see pears in pastry… And my favorite danishes are the cherry-filled kind – but I’m fairly sure they’re not using real cherries 🙁 As for photographing without natural light, I know there are techniques such as DIY lightboxes that can help. I’ve never tried them myself, but Chocolate Moosey and Spicie Foodie have some excellent tutorials on some of this lighting stuff…

    • Thanks Mark & thanks so much for all the info. I’ll have a look at those tutorials. Mmm – cherry filled Danish pastries sound good – I don’t think I’ve tried them! Vohn x

  4. Wow these look AMAZING! I would be in danger of eating the whole batch! Also I definitely agree on the buying puff pastry front – not worth the effort to make it!

    • Thanks Kat! I must admit I did come pretty close to eating the whole lot myself! Vohn x

    • Thanks for popping by Sarah. Glad you like them! Vohn x

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