Wienerbread flip

When we first arrived in Innvik this time around, the mom living downstairs came up with a batch of beautifully weaved wienerbread (what is known as a Danish pastry), and Judge’s eyes totally lit up when he bit into them. They were delicious, and I was given the mission to learn how to make it. Now, it behooves me to say that the lady living downstairs makes her living off of making food and baking. Just saying. My first attempt came out looking not at all beautifully woven, not cooked through, and really not delicious (I used store-bought vanilla cream). Basically all and all a fiasco. So I decided to switch it up – rather than try the weave, try a simpler form (the more traditional square with the corners folded inn to the middle), and rather than the vanilla cream, which tasted gross bought but I didn’t want to try making from scratch, use something that is near and dear to our heart – the tosca-cake topping. My second attempt was a bit better, but still not quite a winner in my books, so I thought it through again.

Back in the day I liked making cinnamon buns. So I figured if I used the butter-dough of the wienerbread, and then instead of a butter/sugar/cinnamon mix I just sprinkled some nutmeg and rolled it up (not cinnamon, as Judge is allergic to it), it may be just the right amount of low-sugar that I’d feel comfortable letting Leona eat as much as she wanted, and still nice and tasty.

It was a success! Below is the recipe (I got the recipe for the butter-dough from here), and how-to. The pictures that I took are from a half-sized batch, and I still made 12 buns, which got a nice size anyways. 

After the initial success I also added some chopped almonds to the ‘sweet’ version. Not too shabby. I also mixed it up another notch and made some savory ones – these are definitely my favorite.

Ingredients

300 cc cold milk
12 g dry yeast or 50 g fresh yeast
1 egg
3 Tbs sugar (or less to none if you wish to keep it really low sugar)

   [Note: If you want to make savory buns, you can replace the sugar with 1 1/4 tsp salt]

500 g (aka 900 cc) flour

300 g cold butter

A few dashes of nutmeg (or whatever you wish to add to the buns)

One more egg for brushing prior to baking

Steps:
1. If using fresh yeast, stir it out in the cold milk (if using dry yeast, you can start it off with some warm water and sugar, because the dough should be cold and thus warm milk should not be used)
2. Mix the egg and sugar lightly and add into the milk-yeast mixture (or just beat the egg lightly if not doing a sweet version)
3. Add the sifted flour (with the salt mixed in already if doing savory version) and stir until it just comes together to form a dough
4. Let the dough rest in the fridge while you prepare the toppings
5. Use just enough flour so that the dough does not stick to your fingers or the counter-top and gently knead the dough a little

6. Roll out the dough to a 1 cm thick rectangle, sprinkling more flour under or on top of the dough if needed

7. Use a Norwegian cheese cutter to cut the butter into thin slices, and cover two thirds of the rectangle (if you do not have a cheese cutter, just slice the butter thinly)

8. Fold the remaining one third (uncovered) section over the middle section, and then fold it all one more time over the remaining section

[Now you should have five alternating layers total of dough and butter; the butter-layers should not be touching each other]

9. Rotate the folded dough 90 degrees, and roll it out again to a 1 cm thick rectangle
10. Fold again in thirds, as above
11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 two more times (or just one if you rolled the rectangles too thin and the butter is now coming through all over the place), but do not fold it the final time. 

Throughout this process, if butter starts coming through under or on top, sprinkle some flour on the section and gently brush it over the surface of the dough

(Steps 12 through 14 provide you with tons of opportunity for variations. For example you can make them sweet by adding a sugar/cinnamon or nutmeg mix, ‘neutral’ by just adding nutmeg, or savory by adding spring onions and ham, and so on; you can also make the buns different shapes, like horns/croissants by making triangles and rolling them up fat end toward skinny end, etc.)

12. Sprinkle the nutmeg over the surface of the rectangle (or add whatever other filling you want)
13. Roll the rectangle into a long sausage, and cut it into pieces that are about an inch wide (or cut triangles from the rectangle and roll fat side to point)
14. Place the pieces into a muffin tin and brush with the last egg (or place on baking sheet)

[The savory option]

15. Let rest 45 minutes to an hour
16. Put in pre-heated (200-220C) oven and bake for 12-15 min. If it is browning too quickly, you can reduce the heat a bit.

I have noticed that at first the butter will bubble up on the top, and towards the end, when it is finished baking, it will look ‘dry’, which gives me the hint that it should be ready just about now.

Best eaten fresh out of the oven, or at the very latest the same day.


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