Korena in the Kitchen

This is the last post in a series of three – click to read Part I and Part II.

Here’s what I did with the rest of the sourdough Danish pastry that I tucked away in the freezer: Chocolate Chip-Cream Cheese Spirals and Cinnamon-Sugar Scrolls. Both super easy and pretty darn tasty!

To make these, you will need:

A batch of Sourdough Danish Pastry dough (I had half a batch, so used one quarter batch for each variety)

Spirals: Cream Cheese Filling and a handful of chocolate chips

Scrolls: softened butter and a few tbsp of cinnamon-sugar

Roll out the pastry as directed in this post into two 9″ x 18″ rectangles, but do not cut it into squares. Shape as follows.

Chocolate Chip-Cream Cheese Spirals

Trim the short edges of the pastry sheet so that the butter layers are showing (remember I was only working with one square quarter of the dough rather than one rectangular half, so there is no short edge). Spread with a few tablespoons of cream cheese filling and evenly scatter with a handful of chocolate chips – cover the pastry right to the edges will the cream cheese filling and chocolate chips. From one long edge, roll up the pastry, jelly-roll style, to enclose the chocolate chips and cream cheese tightly. With a large sharp knife, slice the roll into 3/4″ pieces. Turn them so you can see the spiral and re-shape them with your fingers. Unroll about 1 inch of the tail end of each spiral and firmly tuck it underneath the spiral – this will stop it from unraveling when it puffs up in the oven. Place on a lined baking sheet, cover lightly with plastic, and proof at room temperature for a few hours, until very puffy and jiggly.

Cinnamon-Sugar Scrolls

These are very similar to French palmiers, which are made with unyeasted puff pastry rather than Danish dough.

Trim the short edges of the pastry sheet to that the butter layers are showing. Spread the pastry with a very thin layer of softened butter, then sprinkle evenly with cinnamon sugar, covering the pastry right to the edges. From each long edge, tightly roll the pastry up halfway so that the rolls meet in the middle. With a large sharp knife, slice the rolls into 1/2″ – 3/4″ pieces, re-shaping with with your fingers if necessary. Place on a lined baking sheet, cover lightly with plastic, and proof at room temperature for a few hours, until very puffy and jiggly.

To Bake

When the Danishes are fully proofed, brush the outside edges with an egg wash (1 egg plus 1 tbsp water) – try to avoid getting any on the cut edges. These Danishes are smaller than the others I made, so they needed much less time in the oven (I found this out the hard way and they got rather overly-dark on the bottom. Oh well!). Bake the Danishes in a preheated 425˚F oven for 6 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375˚F and bake for an additional 6 – 8 minutes, until deeply golden brown. Cool on a rack.

PS – Posts are probably going to be a bit sporadic for the remainder of June as Nate and I are moving at the end of the month and subsequently I need to do less cooking/picture taking/writing and more packing and cleaning… (Boooooo!)