Recipe: Homemade Danish Sourdough Pastry with Cheese Filling and Rhubarb
The homemade Danish pastry dough for the Cheese pastries is made using only natural sourdough and works without yeast. You can either use the dough to bake classic Danish pastry pockets with cheese filling or fill the pastries with rhubarb or other fruit. The dough is quick to make and rests overnight in the fridge. You can also use the Danish pastry dough to make sourdough croissants, German Franzbrötchen or pudding pretzels with sourdough or pain au chocolat.
Ingredients
dough
- 300 g water
- 50 g sourdough starter
- 500 g wheat flour bread flour (or type 550)
- 50 g soft butter or vegan butter
- 25 g sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
Butter Layer
- 200 g soft butter or vegan butter
- 40 g wheat flour bread flour (or type 550)
Cottage cheese filling
- 250 g cottage cheese or ricotta
- 1 egg yolk
- 80 g sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Other
- 1 egg white or milk or a plant-based milk
Instructions
Day 1
- For the dough, mix* the flour, water, sugar, salt, butter and sourdough.
- Cover the dough and leave to rest at room temperature for about an hour. Then stretch and fold once.
- In winter, leave the dough to rest overnight at room temperature. In summer, leave the dough to rest for two to three hours at room temperature and then place in the fridge overnight.
- For the butter layer, mix 200g soft butter with 40g flour. Then place in the centre of a sheet of baking paper. Fold the baking paper around the butter so that a 20 x 20 centimetre square of butter is enclosed in the baking paper. A rolling pin helps with this.
- Place the butter layer in the fridge overnight.
Day 2
- Roll out the dough into a square and place the butter plate (without the baking paper) in the centre of the dough. Fold the corners of the dough around the butter plate to form an envelope.
- First round: Carefully flatten the dough with a rolling pin* and roll out until you have an elongated rectangle.
- Fold in a third of the dough on the left-hand side and fold the right-hand third over it so that there are three equal layers of dough on top of each other.
- Wrap the dough in a tea towel and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Then unwrap the dough again, carefully flatten with a rolling pin* and roll out into a long rectangle.
- For the second round, fold the rectangle in again to create three layers of dough.
- Perform a total of three rounds. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes between batches.
- For the filling, mix the cottage cheese with the sugar, vanilla sugar and egg yolk and set aside.
- After the third round, the dough is rolled out into a large rectangle.
- Cut the rectangle into twelve equal rectangles using a pizza cutter*.
- For cheese Danish pastry pockets: Spread the cottage cheese filling on the rectangles, fold over the corners and press together in the centre.
- Place the Danish pastry pockets on a baking tray, brush with milk, water or egg, cover and leave to rest for two to three hours - depending on the room temperature.
- For Danish pastries with rhubarb: Fold the corners of the rectangles towards the centre. Place the pastries on a baking tray, brush with milk, water or egg, cover and leave to rest for two to three hours.
- Press the centre in slightly, spread the cottage cheese filling on top and place the rhubarb pieces on the cottage cheese.
- Brush the cheese Danish pastries with milk or egg again before baking.
- Preheat the oven to 230 degrees using a steam tray consisting of a stainless steel oven dish* and lava stones*.
- Bake the Danish pastries for 10 minutes with steam and about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.
