Easy spiced orange & vanilla Danish pastries

Always a total comfort to eat (cue what has got to be guilt-free indulgence!), these buttery pastries, with with an orange and vanilla almond filling, evoke the flavours of Panettone.

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I adore making these pastries and they always vanish rapidly. They are great made with croissant dough, although I highly recommend my shortcut version (recipe link below), which gives a very effective lamination:

Spiced orange and vanilla Danish

And even though puff pastry is not at all traditional for Danish pastries, the use of it gives excellent results and makes these pastries even easier.

Spiced orange and vanilla Danish

Spiced orange and vanilla Danish

Spiced orange

I use the wonderful Fiori di Sicilia essence, often used in Panettone to give a wonderful spiced citrus depth of flavour (it is widely available online), but you can use good quality orange oil.

Spiced orange and vanilla Danish

Either way, I think these are pastries to die for!

Recipe: easy Danish pastries, Panettone-style

Spiced orange and vanilla Danish

• 1 batch of quick croissant dough, all-butter puff pastry or a full croissant dough

Quick almond filling:

• 100g ground almonds
• 60g icing sugar
• 1 large egg, beaten
• grated zest of 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• a couple of drops of Fiori di Sicilia essence (or Panettone essence)

Glaze:

• 2 tablespoons marmalade, sieved if it has pieces of peel*
• 1 tablespoon Amaretto liqueur, optional
• a little pearl sugar or nibbed sugar, optional

  *you can chop up the peel from the marmalade that is left from sieving it and mix it into the filling

(1) Make the filling by mixing the ingredients together to a fairly thick but spreadable paste. If it is too thick, add a little milk or water.

(2) Roll out the pastry thinly and trim the edges to give a neat rectangle.

(3) Cut squares of the same size out of the dough: I tend to go for squares around 10cm by 10cm.

*top tip: once you have cut out one square, place it on top of the rest of the dough and use it as a template to cut around

(4) Put about a teaspoon or so of the filling in the centre of the dough and shape however you want. Below are photos of the shaping for the classic pinwheel pastries (the batch below was with a peach filling):

Pinwheels: place filling in the centre

Pinwheels: make 4 diagonal cuts

Pinwheels: move one piece over to about 3 o’clock

Pinwheels: repeat the folding over of the “sails”

Pinwheels: ready to prove

(5) Pop inside a large plastic bag (if using croissant dough: either the shortcut version or the full version) for an hour or so, or until slightly risen and puffy.

(6) Brush all over with beaten egg and bake in an oven preheated to 180C for about 15-20 minutes.

(7) Mix the sieved marmalade with the Amaretto (or a splash of water so that the marmalade is runnier) and brush over the pastries while they are still warm. You can also sprinkle over some pearl or nibbed sugar if you like. Leave to cool and then devour!

Spiced orange and vanilla Danish