The best dough recipe I found was from Thibeault’s Table. The dough was INCREDIBLY soft. It was almost unreal. It seemed like sour cream had struck again as a baker back pocket go-to. As you’ll see from Thibeault’s Table post she made hers in these amazing shapes and even had a nice frosting glaze drizzled over hers. As you can see I attempted to get fancy with mine with the semi-twists in my dough. At first I wanted squares but they kept coming out into circles so I ran with it. I rolled my dough and curled the ends toward the middle as round and round as I could go. The key is to make a nice pocket in the middle to plop your Danish filling, peaches and pecans into. At some point though it got easier to simply use a butter knife to make designs. I’ll try for better twists next time. Also, I didn’t realize the dough would become so fluffy while baking, hence the odd looking shapes some of mine came out in. Still just as tasty but next time I’ll try to twist more carefully and evenly all around. For the glaze I didn’t wish to use any but perhaps next time I will.
To my surprise the filling was literally a combination of cream cheese, butter and vanilla. So crazy all these years the filling was so easy to put together.
For the dough:
1 c sour cream
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c butter
1 t. salt
2 packages dry yeast
1/2 c warm water
2 eggs beaten
4 c all purpose flour
Melt butter, sour cream, sugar and salt together until warm and sugar is dissolved (I personally did this step in a microwave for about 2 minutes or so). Cool to room temperature.
In large mixing bowl dissolve yeast in warm water.
Mix sour cream mixture with yeast and add beaten eggs and flour. Will be a very soft dough. Put in fridge over-night to rise or you can chill it for two or four hours (I personally did it for two and the dough was amazing). Knead the dough some more and then go forward.
Make sure to have a floury surface and then, depending on how large you want your Danish to be, pull the dough you need. I rolled mine out with a rolling pin into a circle.
For the cheese filling:
2 packages of 8 oz. cream cheese
3/4 c sugar
1 egg beaten
1 t. vanilla extract
1/8 t. salt
**I drained a cup of peach juice into my mixture for extra peach taste.
Mix together cream cheese with sugar, egg, vanilla extract and salt. Let this chill until you’re ready to put onto your dough.
For the toppings:
4 c diced peaches (drained) (literally used the fruit cups from the grocery store aisle that come in packs of four; very convenient).
1 1/2 c bag of chopped pecans
Once you have your dough shape and have added the cheese filling, you’ll take about a teaspoon of peaches and place them on top, then sprinkle your pecans. It’s crucial you drain the peach juice or else you’ll learn as I did that it will run all over your dough.
You can do the filling first and have it chill while you make the dough and while it’s chilling for those two or four hours or even overnight.
Bake at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden.
