Bake! Cream cheese heaven

I love scones, and Nick Malgieri's scone recipes were enough to make the purchase of The Modern Baker totally worth it for me (even if there hadn't been other hits in the book). I've made both the butterscotch and the Welsh scones more times that I can count.

So I was really excited to see several more scone recipes in Bake! On Thursday morning, I decided the coworkers needed a little treat, and I whipped up a batch of the cream cheese scones. They weren't quite as easy as the recipes in Modern Baker, but still came together quickly: cream cheese, unsalted butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, and eggs. The scones were simple, rich, and tasty (although the kids were disappointed in the lack of chocolate). I think next time, I'll experiment with adding some goodies (cranberries and white chocolate, perhaps?).

This morning was my morning to wake up early with the kiddos (hubby and I take turns getting up early on the weekends), so I whipped up a batch of the quick Danish pastry dough. Some of the Twitter gang had talked about making the Danish cheese pockets this weekend, and it didn't take long to convince my hubby that that was a good idea.

The dough was a little odd to me: a cross between a yeast sweet bread (as you'd make for cinnamon rolls) and a rich buttery pie crust. It uses yeast dissolved in warm water and milk, combined with all purpose flour, sugar, salt, and 3 sticks of butter...and 2 eggs. This stuff is rich!

The dough rests a couple of times in the fridge and goes through a couple of press and folds ("giving the dough a turn"). When it was ready, I divided it in half, stuck half in the freezer, and used the other half to make the cheese pockets.

For the pockets, I decided to make two kinds: the traditional cream cheese filling (which is my favorite) and the poppy seed variation (which my dad and stepmom love). Assembly was a bit time consuming, but not difficult.

They were supposed to rise for 30 minutes, although I didn't detect much actual rising. And then they baked for 20; they were a little darker than "deep golden," so I guess I should've pulled them a few minutes earlier.

I was a bit surprised by the final result. I was expecting a more yeasty dough (again, similar to cinnamon rolls) but these definitely had a more buttery pie-crust texture and flavor. Still, they were yummy!

These were a lot more work than my usual breakfast treats of cinnamon rolls or scones, so I doubt I will make them very often...but they'll be fun for an occasional special breakfast treat.