Danish Pastry Rolls

These Danish pastry rolls are from a vintage recipe that is a variation of what you might envision. The flaky and buttery dough creates a delicious roll (think cinnamon roll style) filled with sweet raisins bathed in a sugary filling. I love these pastries as breakfast with a hot cup of coffee.

I’ll be honest, I had never had a Danish pastry – at least not the way this recipe describes. I think of danish pastries as being topped with cream cheese with a swirl of fruit. But this one, I challenge you to make, because it’s better in its simplicity.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It’s a quick dough to make. I had the dough whipped together in no time.
• It’s vintage. These simple from scratch recipes just keep getting better and better.
• The unique addition of cream cheese gives it a depth of flavor (like the cream cheese cookies) while also adding to the pockets of flaky crust.

Key Ingredients

• Cottage Cheese: Using high-quality cottage cheese will enhance the flavor with this recipe. Cream it using your mixer to remove a lot of the chunky texture. It will still be a little lumpy and that’s okay!
• Nuts or Raisins: I chose to make this recipe using raisins but nuts like pecans or walnuts would be equally delicious in my opinion.
• White and Brown Sugar: Like other recipes that are my favorite, the combination of brown sugar and white sugar in this recipe gives it a depth of flavor.
• Butter: I use salted butter in everything because that’s what I have on hand. You can use either in this recipe.

How to Make Danish Pastry Rolls

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, white sugar, and salt. Stir. Cut in cold butter. Add creamed cottage cheese, egg, and yeast. Mix well into the dough.
3. Roll the dough flat until it measures 14×14 inches.
4. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, melted butter, and vanilla. Spread over flattened dough and top with nuts or raisins.
5. Starting with the side closest to you, roll the dough tightly. Cut into ½ inch slices. Place in greased pan and let rise for 2 hours or until doubled in size.
6. Bake in a preheated 400˚ F oven for 15-20 minutes.

Recipe Notes

Let the dough rise in a warm space (if you can). I tried to find a warm draftless area in our farmhouse, but on a cold winter day, that was a challenge. My danish rolls took about 3 hours to rise and baked up just fine.

Cream the cottage cheese. I used a mixer to cream my cottage cheese. There was still some texture to it which is unavoidable. Don’t worry about it as those little bits of cottage cheese will help create the little air pockets making the rolls flaky.

Use cold butter. Using cold butter in this recipe not only helps the cut-in process but helps to create little pockets of flakiness as it melts in the oven while baking.

Store: Store these rolls for up to 3 days in an airtight container at room temperature.

More Breakfast Recipes

• Crockpot Breakfast Casserole Recipe With Sausage
• Breakfast Burrito Recipe
• Sour Cream Coffee Cake Recipe – another great breakfast recipe to bake!

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