the fruits of my labour

Homemade Danish pastries for Father’s Day breakfast. I had barely eaten any Danish pastries, let alone made them, until a few months ago when I first attempted the recipe in Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. I’ve since made them three times, I think, and each time I have been very happy with the results. This method uses a food processor and despite a lot of rolling out and folding, not to mention a bit of forethought (you can’t really make these on a whim, unless you’ve previously had the forethought to freeze some prepared dough), they are quite easy. Some of my rolling and folding was pretty dodgy, but I don’t think anyone could tell after they’d puffed up in the oven and been smothered in clear and sugar glazes. The recipe gives you enough dough to make twelve pastries, so I filled six with apricot jam (as requested by Chris) and filled the other six with an almond mixture, as suggested by Nigella. Both were delicious, and the praise I received for them alone was enough to make the effort worthwhile. I’ll be making them again soon, I think.

Of course, after all that butter-laden pastry, there was plenty of fuel to burn, so it was outside for some backyard soccer:

And later, some cuddles on the couch:

It was a beautiful family day, capped off by roast beef with Yorkshire puddings, rice pudding and once the kids were in bed, a new game (Father’s Day present).