Recipes

[Carol1229]

I've made this recipe for years. These, along with the Cinnamon Twists, started my homemade bread baking journey-and am I ever glad they did.

I used to love to bake for church functions and bake sales. An elderly woman who was an AMAZING cook and baker always ran the bake sales and would ask for donations. She made loaves of bread, rolls, delicious sticky buns....she LOVED making bread....and she was the only one that did. When she'd contact people to bake for these sales she'd say "Do you make bread? Because people always love to buy homemade bread." Somehow she and one other baker were the only ones bringing bread to the sales.

I wanted to make something different that I thought might sell so opted to try these. They made a BIG splash-people loved the fruit filled rolls. Dorris dubbed them "Danish" and when she'd call me to bake for something for the church, she would always say "And you can make those Danish that everyone likes....."

Danish-at least to me-are those pretty Figure-8 pastries with 2 different fruit fillings on each side, or a long braided coffee cake with fruit filling. These are a sweet roll dough with fruit in the center. Dorris was a force to be reckoned with... and I wasn't about to contradict her title for these. Hence the name "Danish" stuck.

These are easy to put together using rapid rise yeast. The dough goes together in no time.

I use my kitchen scale and weigh the dough then divide the total weight by 24 so that I can get each roll about the same size. I've been doing this with all recipes that have to be divided-it takes away the guess work.

Another key to the success of these rolls is what you fill them with. The original recipe calls for seedless raspberry preserves-which is delicious, but I don't always have it in the cabinet. Any flavor of preserves goes well in these-make sure they're preserves though-jam doesn't work as well. What also works great is canned pie filling-however if you use cherry pie filling, try not to get too much of the liquid in there with the cherries-that melts down and gets messy on the side of the rolls. If you like cherry filling, I suggest preserves. One of my favorites to use is lemon pie filling-SO good. I have used apple pie filling once or twice but I much prefer making my own apple filling.

For the ones pictured here, I peeled and chopped 4 Granny Smith apples and cooked them in a skillet with about 1 Tbsp. butter and 1/2 cup granulated sugar. Once the apples were cooked through, I added a little cornstarch slurry to thicken the juice, them took the mixture off the heat and stirred in a touch of vanilla extract. The could have thickened it a little more but it still worked out. I chilled the filling overnight and avoided adding too much of the liquid when I filled the indentations with fruit.

Bob had to go get tires for his car last weekend and since the guy who managed the way went out of his way to get him scheduled, I decided to send these rolls up with Bob so that the guys at the tire dealer could have a treat for breakfast. I've been on what Bob calls a "Baking Drought" lately-it was SO nice to have an opportunity to bake what I love and send it out the door!

If you'd like a nice change for a sweet roll-I hope you give these a try.

Sweet rolls, Danish...whatever you choose to call them-they're delicious.


Carol


RASPBERRY "DANISH"
(Source: Adapted from Pillsbury's Breads Breads Breads cookbook)

3 1/2-4 c. bread flour
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 (1/4 oz. each) pkg. rapid rise yeast
1 c. milk
1/2 c. butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. butter extract

TOPPING:
Red raspberry preserves, or pie filling of your choice
1/4 c. butter or margarine, melted

GLAZE:
1 c. confectioners' sugar
2-3 Tbsp. milk

Grease 3 cookie sheets or spray them with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine 1 1/2 c. flour, sugar, salt and yeast; whisk together to blend.

In a small saucepan, heat 1 c. milk and 1/2 c. butter until very warm (120-130 degrees). Add the warm liquid, eggs, vanilla and butter extracts to the flour mixture. Blend on low speed until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed. With a wooden spoon, stir in an additional 1 3/4-2 c. flour, stirring until the dough pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl.

On floured surface, knead in 1/4-1/2 c. flour until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes.

Cover the dough and let rest for 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into 24 pieces. Roll each piece into a 15" rope. Loosely coil each rope into a circle, tucking the ends underneath the coil. Place the rolls on the prepared pans. Cover and let rise in warm place until light and doubled in size, about 45-60 minutes.

When the rolls are almost doubled in size, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Carefully brush the rolls with melted butter. Make a deep impression in the center of each roll and fill with the preserves or pie filling. Bake @ 350 degrees for 10-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Brush each roll lightly a second time with a little melted butter; remove from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

For the glaze, combine the confectioners' sugar and enough milk to reach the desired drizzling consistency.

Drizzle the glaze over each roll. Makes 24.