Cream Cheese and Chocolate Danish

Matt Davis - via Bagley Home, Guthrie, OK

How many sticks of butter can you eat? Now smother those sticks of butter in sugar and add some cocoa - how many can you eat now?

For a whole week Matt dreamed of danishes! So Saturday morning he bounded out of bed and went briskly to work in the kitchen, with Evan photographing the adventure.

Step 1: Mix lots of butter with flour, roll out in a sheet between two layers of wax paper. 

You think these four sticks of butter are a big deal? They are nothing!

Step 2: Dry ingredient time: flour, salt, sugar.

Step 3: Wet ingredients: water, yeast, sugar. Gotta love the yeasties!

 

Step 4: Mix all together: milk, heavy cream, yeast mix, dry mix, and flour.

Step 5: Kneed and refrigerate. After you refrigerate the dough, roll it out and lay the sheet of butter from step one on to it. LAY THE SHEET OF BUTTER! Who gets to say that :)

Step 6: Fold the edges of the dough to the center, roll it out, fold into 1/3s, refrigerate, and repeat.

Pastry pros out there know that this layering is going to make the end result dough flaky and delightful. For non-pastry pros out there, just imagine your body melting into a million pieces with every bite. Everyone together now? Excellent - let's move forward.

Step 7: Roll the dough out flat and cut dough like so (see below pic), add chocolate/ cream cheese filling, freak out because it's so awesome, and braid the loaf.

 

Step 8: Place the loaves (because we couldn't just make one!) onto baking sheets. Let them rise in a warm place (like the oven). After they've risen, brush the outside with egg.

 

Step 9: Bake

 I (Lacey) was out of the house when all this happened, trusting that my house would still be standing after leaving the fellas cooking in the kitchen all day. They texted me this picture (above) around 6pm - so I quickly said my goodbyes and sped home!

This is what I came home to:

 

Step 10: Admire. It was so beautiful! The smell was intoxicating and the dough was perfect. The egg made it shiny and it was flaky and there was chocolate... 

Step 11: Be jealous. 

Total sticks of butter used - what's your guess?

PS. This was one of the greatest things that has ever been made in the Bagley house! That was until Matt leaned over to Evan in church today and said:

"What if we combined the danish recipe and the cinnamon roll recipe?"

His jaw dropped.

Post pending :)