Bear Claws, Fruit Strips and Pain Chocolate Danish Desserts

Will the Danishes ever end?? :)  Happy Friday!! We have come to the end of our laminated doughs.  Lets give a big sigh of relief! Whew.. I am sorry, Danishes are not my thing!  At the very bottom, the  "Hamburger Helper" looking danish is actually a Bear Claw :) .... I'm laughing, it is missing its arch at the bottom, but you get the point.  ;)  You will sort of see it in the dough when I show you how to cut and shape below. Above the Bear Claw is the Pain Chocolate made from the Danish Dough and above that is the Fruit Strip or Snail Danish filled with Guava. Mmm Guava! Me lovey! After all, I'm Venezuelan born!  :) :)

The Bear claw requires a 6" x 12" cut out dough. I then filled it with the Maple Pecan Filling that we created in the beginning of the week.  I placed it on the dough, in the middle in a straight line.  

Bring the bottom of the dough up, just covering the filling and press down

It may be a little difficult to see, but take a look at the far left of the dough, you will see it is slightly lifted and pulled up. Bring the other flap over, not completely over, just to the pressed down dough and press again:

At this point  you will flip your dough over so the pressed dough is on the bottom.  Cut this right in half, and then cut both of those in half as well, leaving you with 4 equal sized pieces.

Now you will slit each piece 3 times, creating the 4 paws. You will do this on the dough part, not on the filled part.  Spread each piece apart and bring the bottom filled portion up and curved creating the look of a paw. Egg wash them all and bake at 400 degrees F.

Next I created the Pain Chocolate. Super simple. Take the dough, measure it by the size of the chocolate. Slightly move the chocolate over so you have enough dough to cover it and then press the dough down. Place your second piece of chocolate right on top of the pressed dough as shown in picture number 2.  Roll the previously covered chocolate over and then cut off the dough at the side so you have a rectangle shape. Seal the cut off piece.

This pic shows where I cut it off.. This piece you will pinch to seal. Egg wash all your creations, score them 3 times and bake at 400 degrees F.

To create the Fruit Strip. Cut the dough into a 12" by 2" strip.  Twist each end and turn opposite sides creating that twirl shape. Once you set this down it will want to unwind, stop that by folding up the tip as seen below:

From that tip, start to swirl the rest of the strip around in circles until it looks like this:

Wrap the end piece to the bottom of the dough. Egg wash, fill with your choice of fruit filling and bake at 400 degrees F.

There you have it! Between yesterday and today, you have 5 new shapes you can create with Danish Dough.. Yea, that's correct, I said YOU.. because I am officially over the dough, the puff pastries and the croissant.. Sorry!  Not my thing!   Seriously, I never want to see another Danish again.

Enjoy your Mother's Day weekend! I am very grateful for mine. It's not that often you can get unconditional love and that is what I have with my mommy :). Yes, at 36 years old, I will still lose her in a store and call out, "Mommy!! Where are you? " :) :)

Enjoy your weekend!

XO