I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this getaway before — sorry, I don’t get out much — but after discovering that Danish pastry dough can be made in the food processor and, as a result, that cheese danishes can be whipped up in just a few hours, I found myself dreaming about other danish-like pastries, croissants in particular, ones brimming with prosciutto à la Eataly specifically. The breakfast pastries we ate at Eataly were served at room temperature and were filled with slices of meat sandwich-style. They inspired me to make the pain au jambon I had read about in the Tartine cookbook, in which smoked ham and cheese are rolled and baked with the dough. Guided by Tartine, I layered thin slices of prosciutto and batons of gruyère over my faux croissant dough, and before too long, a half dozen crackly golden pastries emerged from my oven, cheese oozing from the ridges, salty meat entwined with each flaky layer. If you read this post about the cheese danishes, you know I am in awe of this dough. Without any labor-intensive butter-laminating process, this pastry dough bakes into a puff of feather-light layer upon feather-light layer. It’s astonishing. Perhaps more astonishing, however, is how the finished croissants — how so many good croissants — feel and taste about as light as rice cakes, as if very little butter went into their creation at all. How do they do that? What a sham. In any case, the possibilities with this dough seem endless — croissants aux amandes, pain au chocolat, morning buns, plain croissants perhaps made for the sole purpose of making croissant bread pudding or French toast the following day? If you are hosting a holiday brunch, know that the rolled croissants can be prepared a day in advance, stored in the fridge for up to 18 hours, and after a three-hour rise the following morning, baked to golden perfection. As with the cheese danishes, too, they reheat incredibly well on subsequent mornings, and when halved and toasted and filled with a fried egg, they make just about the best breakfast sandwich you could ever imagine.
I received a couple of comments/questions regarding the rolling out process of the Danish pastry dough, and how to do it without adding too much flour. I hope this video offers some guidance: These are two rolled croissants that spent 12 hours in the fridge. The following morning, after letting them rise for 3 hours… …they baked off beautifully. This is nice to know if you want to shape the croissants the night before you plan on serving them. Toasted, halved, and topped with a fried egg. Yum. 5 from 8 reviews If you want to make cheese danishes, view this post. Day-old pastries reheat nicely at 350ºF for 10 minutes or so.
