Mission accomplished

I completed my second daring bakers challenge and I'm still standing. Yippy!

The danish braid recipe was chosen by bakers at Sass & Veracity and What's Cookin'? You can find the recipe at either of their sites. Here's what I learned:

1. When looking for cardamom, it comes ground or in whole pods. The pods still work if you take the time to grind them in a food processer. If you think you can crush the little black seeds, you will be wrong. When you throw the seeds in anyways, the dough will look charmingly flecked with little black dots. However, the flavor will also be restricted to those little zingy black dots as well.

2. When you're filling is way too juicy, you should consider straining out some of those juices. When your what the hell attitude prevails and you spoon in the filling with all that extra liquid, don't be surprised when it leaks all over the place and makes your kitchen look like a crime scene. Raspberry juice will also burn to the bottom of the pastry. Luckily, the burnt jiuice peels off easily.

This is one of the prettiest baked goods I've ever attempted. I took it in to work for coworkers to devour and stunned them with my bravery at attempting this recipe. It was pretty darn delicious.