Christmas Danish Pastry

A very special treat. This recipe has lots of steps, not particularly difficult, but requires some patience and technique to get these looking perfect for gift giving. The taste is phenomenal. You will not be disappointed. A dear friend gave me this recipe. I make several batches each year as gifts, and the last batch, i hide two large pastries as our traditional christmas breakfast. Enjoy!!

Steps

Read and follow carefully !.

Pastry: place butter and sugar in 4-quart bowl , pour heated milk over fat.

Let stand while yeast dissolves in 1 / 2 cup water and 1 tbs sugar.

Stir and let stand for 5 minutes.

When yeast is dissolved and bubbly , add eggs and beat well.

Add yeast / egg mixture to cooled milk mixture.

Add salt to flour in sifter and sift in to bowl of above ingredients.

Beat with a spoon until all flour is added to make a soft dough.

Let rise until double.

Custard: heat milk.

Mix sugar , salt and flour together and stir into hot milk.

Stir until thick , beat egg yolk and gradually add hot mixture to yolk until hot and then add back to original mixture.

Cook 1 minute more.

Let cool.

Almond filling: beat all ingredients together with mixer.

Crumb mixture: combine flour , sugar and walnuts.

Mix in the 1 / 2 cup butter until well mixed.

Assembly: divide dough into 3 portions , or , make up to 12 small pastries.

Roll out to about 1 / 4 to 1 / 2 thick rectang.

Ingredients

butter, water, sugar, yeast, milk, salt, egg, flour, egg yolk, vanilla, almond extract, walnuts