Have you ever wanted to make those cute little danish pastries from scratch? This recipe can make mascarpone or cream cheese danishes, cherry danish, lemon danish or any fruit filled danish you would like! Best of all even the danish dough is homemade and easy!
Why You'll Love This Recipe
- This easy recipe has a light, soft danish dough made from scratch that's not puff pastry or crescent rolls!
- The cheese danishes are made with mascarpone which gives a more mellow flavor than a cream cheese filling!
- These make the perfect breakfast pastries for Christmas morning or Easter brunch!
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- Flour - All purpose flour, not pastry flour and never self rising flour.
- Butter - You may use either unsalted butter or salted butter for this recipe.
- Mascarpone - You may substitute cream cheese for the mascarpone for a cream cheese pastry filling.
- Yeast - Active dry yeast, instant yeast and rapid rise yeast are all the same thing.
- Almond Extract - You may use vanilla extract instead if you prefer.
- Alternative Pastry Fillings - You can fill these danishes with any flavor fruit pie filling you would like. Cherry, lemon, apple, blueberry....any kind you want!
How to Make Step by Step Instructions
- In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast and ½ Tbs. of sugar in the warm water.
- Let that get foamy while you do the next couple steps.
- In a large bowl whisk 2 cups flour, 1 ½ Tbs. Sugar, and salt together.
- Cut in the slightly softened butter with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly with small pieces of butter throughout.
- Pour the yeast mixture, egg yolks and slightly warmed milk into the flour mixture.
- Mix well and add up to a ½ cup more flour to form a pastry dough that's quite a sticky dough. Isn't going to be like bread dough.
- Cover with a dish towel or plastic wrap and let rise until doubled. This is a slow rising dough. Rising until doubled took an hour and a half for me.
- While the pastry dough is rising mix together the mascarpone filling.
- In a small mixing bowl, beat the mascarpone egg yolk, almond extract, sugar and flour together.
- Dump risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
- With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to just a little more than ¼ inch thick.
- Using a 2 ½ inch biscuit cutter, cut the danish pastry dough out into 2 ½ inch circles.
- Place up to 12 circles on a baking sheet or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Cover and let double. This takes 45 minutes to an hour.
- Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Press the centers of the raised circles down using a tablespoon or the back of an ⅛ cup measuring cup.
- Place a small spoonful (between ½ and 1 tablespoon) of filling in the center of the dough circles.
- Top the mascarpone filling with sliced almonds.
- Bake the danishes at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes.
- The bottoms will be golden brown.
- Cool on the baking sheets.
- Whisk the powdered sugar, teaspoon of almond extract and milk together for the almond icing glaze.
- Drizzle glaze over the top of the pastries.
Recipe FAQs
Not quite but they are very similar. Puff pastry is typically very flaky due to it's many layers. This recipe is more of an "American" style Danish rather than a Classic Danish.
Yes, they do! Just make sure they are completely cool before wrapping them up and popping them in the freezer.
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Easy Danish Recipe
- Prep Time: 3 hours (this includes rising time)
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 18-24 Danishes 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Have you ever wanted to make those cute little danish pastries from scratch? This recipe can make mascarpone or cream cheese danishes, cherry danish, lemon danish or any fruit filled danish you would like! Best of all even the danish dough is homemade and easy!
Ingredients
Danish Dough
- 1 package or 2 ¼ tsp Active Dry Yeast
- ½ Tbs. Sugar
- ¼ cup Warm Water
- 2 ½ cups Flour
- 1 ½ Tbs. Sugar
- ½ tsp Salt
- 6 Tbs slightly softened Butter
- 2 Egg Yolks
- ½ cup slightly warmed Milk
Mascarpone Filling
- 8 oz. Mascarpone Cheese, softened
- ¼ cup Sugar
- 2 tsp Almond Extract
- 1 Egg Yolk
- 4 Tbs. Flour
- 1 ½ cups Almond Slices
Assorted Pie Fillings can be used also. See note at end.
Almond Glaze
- 1 cup Powdered Sugar
- 1 tsp Almond extract
- about 2 Tbs. Milk
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine the yeast, ½ Tbs. Sugar, and the warm water. Allow the yeast to get foamy while you do the next step.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together 2 cups of flour, 1 ½ Tbs. Sugar, and the salt. Cut the butter in until the mixture is crumbly.
- Add the foamy yeast, egg yolks and slightly warmed milk.
- Add enough of the remaining half cup of flour to form a soft dough.
- Cover and allow to rise until doubled. (About 1 ½ hours)
- Dump risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out to a little more than ¼ inch thick.
- Using a 2 ½ inch biscuit cutter, cut the dough into 18-24 circles.
- Place the circles on a lightly greased baking sheet and allow to rise until doubled. (45 to 60 minutes)
- When just about doubled preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare the filling.
- For the mascarpone filling. Beat the mascarpone, sugar, almond extract, egg yolk and flour together until smooth.
- Press the centers of the doubled dough circles down using the back of a tablespoon or the back of an ⅛ cup.
- Fill the centers with a heaping ½ Tablespoon of filling. Press the sliced almond onto the top of the mascarpone filling.
- Bake the danishes at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes. The bottoms will be golden brown.
- While the danish cools combine all the almond icing ingredients until smooth. Drizzle the icing over the cooled danishes.
- Serve or store in an airtight container.
Notes
The amount of filling needed for a single batch of these danish is one recipe of the mascarpone filling or one can of pie filling of your choice.
This recipe was inspired by Taste of Home's Almond-Cheese Coffee Cake
Keywords: easy danish recipe, danish pastries, cheese danish recipe, danish dough recipe
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Jeff
Looks Delicious
★★★★★