Pear and Almond Danish Braid Recipe (2024)

For the love of Pete, this one requires a diagram with all those flaps, sections, center lines, strips and folds. Can't make it out this way at all! And what on earth is a bench scraper? Something to remove snow from my outdoor furniture? Have mercy.

Some fine-tuning of the braiding directions may be called for: I understood the 1/2 inch overlap to apply to neighboring flaps, which of course very quickly ran out of any possible overlap, before my wife suggested the overlap should be in the middle, with the flaps coming from the opposite side. What can I say? 1st time I've braided anything. (I've been upbraided, but that experience didn't help.)

If ever a recipe here called for an accompanying video, this is it.

Gorgeous dough, bakes up as good as a bakery. Don't worry too much about overlapping the strips with neighboring strips; they bake together and prevent the filling from spilling out. Don't waste the cut out corners - roll them up and bake them as croissant bites.
Agreed with a comment on the cheese Danish recipe that the initial baking temperature seemed too high - tented the loaf with foil after the initial 10 minutes to keep it from over browning.

Freeze it unbaked, then bake it frozen (after brushing with some beaten egg) at 375 until golden brown and puffed. Probably about 30-35 minutes, but keep an eye on it.

Instead of apricot jam, I reduced to a syrup the reserved juices from the cooked pears with a 1/2 cp of icing sugar to glaze the final braided loaf, which really zinged the “pearishness” of this sweet piece of cuisson. It’s also fairly easy to replace the almond paste with cream cheese but that’s another dish entirely.

This was an easy recipe and absolutely delicious. I made the braided danish but since I had a jar of sour cherries I used them instead of pears and it came out fantastic. (I cooked the cherries with some sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon to thicken up the cherries. The dough handled well and had no issues in rolling it out. Braiding it was not an issue at all. Just follow the instructions. It is time consuming, but hey, that's what good danish is all about.

I used to bake danish for a small bakery and we made our own almond paste by grinding blanched almonds (which we did ourselves, much fresher tasting) with sugar in a food processor and then adding the other ingredients for the filling. It's really a lot easier to both grind the almonds into meal and incorporate the other ingredients in a food processor rather than by hand in a bowl.

I made this recipe successfully and took some photos. The dough handles quite easily, did not have any problems with the flour quantities (someone in the dough recipe complained about flour).
If you read the paragraph about the cutting/folding a few times, it's clear.
I would drain the pears after saute--I had too much liquid even though i tried to leave liquid on the plate. Also, make sure you leave enough on the lower and upper flaps to fold up. Otherwise, worked surprisingly well.

Think of the dough as being made into a rectangular box with 1 " wide 'fringes' along each long side. By removing two fringes, one on each side, at both ends of the box, you leave the middle section remaining, which is pulled up, to form the ends of the box. The 'fringes' are then placed alternating to form the cover for the filling. Hope this helps.

I loved this recipe and greatly enjoyed making it - exactly as described. It was beautiful coming out of the oven. My German wife and German neighbor were very impressed.

DG... a bench scraper is a rigid piece of metal, approx. 4x6", with a wooden or plastic handle along one long side. It is very handy for scraping, cutting or lifting soft dough dough or anything else off your counter. The King Arthur Flour web site. among others, sells them.

Actually, 1/3 c. is too small amount to grind in a food processor, unless its a mini, so please disregard my earlier post. Sorry, it takes at least a cup to work effectively.

Try putting your half sheet pan stacked on another sheet pan, as if storing them, when you bake. The added insulation helps keep the. Ottom from burning. Bake in the middle to top third of the oven.

I am very pleased with the receipe, it is detailed and clear to follow, admittetly I had to read it twice. It is a time consuming process but I enjoyed it from start to finish and love the end result. Thank you, will certainly bake it again.

Terrific recipe! I’ve made the dough for other applications and this was first time I made danish with almond but I substituted some apple compote I made few days earlier. Overall outstanding! I will make again.

This pastry is delectable! Rather than putting the pears on a plate after sautéing, I drained them in a colander, saving the resulting liquid. As someone else suggested, I used the liquid to make a loose icing, which I brushed onto the braid as soon as it came out of the oven.

I loved the filling (used 2 honey crisp apples 1 Granny Smith and cooked about 10 mins to soften. For the almond paste I used TJ almond meal and mixed ingredients in small food bowl of processor.) but the danish dough recipe didn't work well for me... more cake than flake. Will try to find a non-shortcut method next time (with Video)!

This is a beautiful pastry. No issues with braiding, just followed instructions. I made the filings first and set them aside until the dough was ready. The outside was gorgeous (used foil after 10 min) but the inside was still a bit doughy after the 10 min @ 425 20 min @ 375.

Google King Arthur’s Braided Lemon Braid for a video tutorial on how to braid the same type of pastry.

This is the same braiding technique that Samantha uses, though she cuts the strips straight rather than at an angle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TqapbmQYLs&ab_channel=Dominic

I usually don't mess up technical stuff but this one threw me for a loop. Getting the suggested 1/2" overlap was a challenge and I ended up using the leftover corner strips to bandage up any gaps. Consequently I now have a pear and almond mummy. Next time I'll try cutting the strips at an angle instead of perpendicular to the center area and see if that helps. Any tips from those who were successful?

This was delicious (!!!!) and I was surprised how much easier making the dough was than I thought it would be. My only mistake was that I didn't do the folding in the dough instructions and let it rise again (ugh), I just rolled it out after refrigerating for three hours. I thought it would have turned out flat, but it was still excellent! In the future, I am also going to bake it a few minutes less at the higher temperature - it browns rather quickly.

Blanch the almonds?Peel the pears??Thx

Instead of apricot jam, I reduced to a syrup the reserved juices from the cooked pears with a 1/2 cp of icing sugar to glaze the final braided loaf, which really zinged the “pearishness” of this sweet piece of cuisson. It’s also fairly easy to replace the almond paste with cream cheese but that’s another dish entirely.

I think I understand - the 11“ width is comprised of 3” on each side, with 5” in the middle where the filling will go. Each 3” side is sliced in 1” braiding strips that run perpendicular to the center.

This one could use a video for usDanish making novices

This thing is stunning! I actually found the braiding quite easy. I didn’t use quite all of my pear & in retrospect I would’ve cause my braids overlapped a bit too much & some of the tucked in dough didn’t bake quite enough. Next time I’ll stuff a little fuller and probably won’t bother with the higher heat baking time as it colored beautifully and I had to tent it for about 1/2 of the lower temp baking time. Now I want to make a savory one stuff with eggs, bacon and some veg!

If ever a recipe here called for an accompanying video, this is it.