Cheese Danish Recipe

Course: Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine: American, European

Keyword: cheese danish, danish pastry

Prep Time: 45

Cook Time: 30

Rest time: 7 30

Servings: servings

Calories: 430kcal

Author: Victor

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Ingredients

225 g milk whole or 2%
300 g poolish see notes
500 g bread flour
14 g salt
42 g sugar
5 g active dry yeast

For lamination

200 g unsalted butter cold
1/4 cup flour

For the egg wash

2 large egg yolks
1 tsp heavy cream or milk

For the cream cheese filling

240 g cream cheese room temperature
62 g powdered sugar
1 Tbsp milk whole or 2%
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Have your poolish ready beforehand. Bring milk to room temperature or microwave for about 40 seconds. In a large bowl, stir poolish and milk together. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Cover with saran wrap and let sit at room temperature for about half an hour.
Knead the dough in the bowl for 20 seconds, cover and let ferment at room temperature for 1.5 hours, doing stretch and folds every half an hour. Stretch and fold technique is where you take a corner of dough, stretch it and then fold onto itself. Repeat once for each of the four corners.
Lightly dust the dough with flour, transfer into a plastic bag, flatten into a rectangle, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
Mold the butter and 1/4 cup of flour into a 6 x 10 inch rectangle. Do it quickly to avoid letting the butter warm up. I use a pre-shaped envelope made from parchment paper for this task. I cut butter into small cubes, mix with flour, and place into the parchment paper envelope. Then, using a rolling pin, I pound, press and roll it to mold it into a rectangle. Put in the fridge.
Take out the dough from the fridge and roll out into a 8 x 12 inch rectangle.
Take out the butter from the fridge and lay it horizontally on the dough. It should cover about ⅔ of the length of the dough.
Fold the left and the right side of the dough as you would fold a letter. Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll it out into a rectangle measuring about 8 x 12 inches. Do the fold again, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Take the dough out of the fridge, roll out to a 8 x 12 inch rectangle and fold. This is the second turn.
Refrigerate for 1 hour and do a third turn. If you want to use the dough later, place it into a freezer proof bag and freeze for up to three days. The night before using the dough, transfer it into refrigerator.
After the third turn, if using immediately, let the dough relax in the fridge for half an hour, then take out and roll out to about 10 x 18 inch rectangle. The dough should be about ½ inch thick.
Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 12 equal size squares. Transfer the squares onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
Prepare cream cheese filling. Place cream cheese, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract into a medium size bowl. Using a hand mixer mix all the ingredients until the filling is smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Put about a tablespoon of cream cheese filling on top of each square and spread a little into a circle about half size the square. Put berries on top and gently press to set them into filling. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for about 1.5 to 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 425F.
Prepare egg wash by whisking briskly egg yolks and cream or milk. Brush the tops of croissant with the egg wash.
Bake for about 20-30 minutes , until the danishes are deep golden brown, crisp and flaky.

Notes

Poolish

150 g all-purpose flour
150 g water (warm room temperature)
3 g active dry yeast

Mix flour, water and yeast in a bowl, cover and let stand for 3-4 hours at room temperature or in a fridge overnight.

Nutrition