Braided Danish Coffeecake

Jill and I are feeling like baking rock stars today. We both (successfully) made coffee cakes using official "Danish" dough which is very similar to croissant dough. The coffee cakes took ages to make, or at least it seemed like ages, since you need to roll-out, fold, and rest the dough several times. Even if it would have taken a week to make it would have still been worth it. The coffee cake is sublime--tender, flaky, buttery pastry with a delicious cream cheese filling. We are both amazed that these were baked in our homes, and not purchased from a fancy-pants bakery.

The recipe is from the fabulous cookbook, The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet. It's a big, beautiful book, but I have a secret to share. You can find 20% of the book, photos and all, online at Google books. How cool is that! Here's the link to the coffee cake recipe--it refers back to the Danish dough on page 114. If you do make that dough there are some other things that you can use it for--Bear Claws (118), Cheese Danish (116), and Cardamom Twists (117). There are also recipes for the cheese filling and an almond filling (119). I had intended to make both the cheese and the almond coffee cakes, but the package of what I thought was almond pasta turned out to marzipan. The recipe makes four coffee cakes. I baked two and froze the rest of the dough to use later.

Please check out Jill's post and her photos--her coffee cakes look amazing.