Tender Cream Cheese Pastry Dough done Danish Style
A mash-up of one of the easiest doughs and one of the hardest, tender and forgiving with tons of flaky layers, perfect for turnovers both savory and sweet.
This is an ideal lazy lousy weather day project, with an active time of about thirty minutes (excluding the final turnover assembly) and a rest time of somewhere between an hour and eight, spread out how ever you’d like.
Ingredients
this makes enough dough for a 12×18” sheet of dough approximately 1/8th of an inch thick
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1-2 teaspoons plain or vanilla sugar (omit for savory recipes)
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom (absolutely optional)
- 5 ounces (about 10 Tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
- 6 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into bits
Directions
- In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade (or the the plastic dough blade if you happen to own a cuisinart with a recalled blade and still haven’t received a replacement yet) combine the flour, salt, sugar, and spice, whir to combine. Add the butter and pulse about ten-15 times until the butter is the size of small peas or large hail. Add the cream cheese and continue to process until dough just begins to come together, about 10-20 seconds (It will be crumbly and a little shaggy). Dump the dough directly into a plastic bag and press together into a rough square. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to six hours.
- After at least 30 minutes roll out the dough into an (approximately) 8×15” rectangle (the dough will still be a bit crumbly at this point) and then fold the rectangle into thirds- like a piece of paper going into an envelope. Dust the dough with flour as necessary to prevent sticking. At this point depending on time and temperature you can continue the rolling folding process 2-3 more times or place the dough in the refrigerator between each fold and roll. If it’s hot out you will definitely want to chill the dough between folds, just put it back in the same plastic bag you started with. I opted for a fifteen-thirty minute rest between folds.
- After the final fold you can with proceed with rolling into your final shape or refrigerate up to 6 hours until you are ready to go.
People often ask me why I don’t bake professionally. These turnovers in all their irregular and imperfect glory, illustrate why I’ll never start a bakery or vie for the best baker prize. Some of my squares were square but some were more rectangular, and sizes varied too. Pastry pro-rated is perfect at home but difficult to price in a cafe.
Thankfully the dough is forgiving and not prone to tearing so while assembly was sticky it was uneventful.
For a description of how I imagined the process to be you can refer to the food and wine article linked below or check out the vanilla bean blogs post on assembly.
I used canned cherries for my filling, riffing on this recipe from Food and Wine. I was missing some key ingredients so while I was delighted with how the pastry turned out the full Monty on the filling will have to wait ’til cherry season.
Tender Cream Cheese Pastry Dough done Danish Style
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1-2 teaspoons plain or vanilla sugar omit for savory recipes
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom absolutely optional
- 5 ounces approximately 10 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
- 6 ounces cold cream cheese cut into bits
Instructions
- In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade (or the the plastic dough blade if you happen to own a cuisinart with a recalled blade and still haven’t received a replacement yet) combine the flour, salt, sugar, and spice, whir to combine. Add the butter and pulse about ten-15 times until the butter is the size of small peas or large hail. Add the cream cheese and continue to process until dough just begins to come together, about 10-20 seconds (It will be crumbly and a little shaggy). Dump the dough directly into a plastic bag and press together into a rough square. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to six hours.
- After at least 30 minutes roll out the dough into an (approximately) 8x15” rectangle (the dough will still be a bit crumbly at this point) and then fold the rectangle into thirds- like a piece of paper going into an envelope. Dust the dough with flour as necessary to prevent sticking. At this point depending on time and temperature you can continue the rolling folding process 2-3 more times or place the dough in the refrigerator between each fold and roll. If it’s hot out you will definitely want to chill the dough between folds, just put it back in the same plastic bag you started with. I opted for a fifteen-thirty minute rest between folds.
- After the final fold you can with proceed with rolling into your final shape or refrigerate up to 6 hours until you are ready to go.
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