Almond Danish Kugelhopf

by Laura on December 4, 2010

Making puff pastry is no picnic.  The butter has to be the same temperature as the dough.  You have to be pretty stellar with a rolling pin.  And, at least for me until I’m more practiced, it’s not always a pretty picture.  This recipe uses a fake-out puff pastry, which you make by leaving bean-sized butter pieces in the dough rather than a block of butter.  You do a couple of turns—rolling and folding the dough—but they can be done in quick succession without resting.  And the results are marvelous.  You can make individual pastries or a beautiful braid with this recipe, but rolling up the dough and slicing it into rounds which nestle in a kugelhopf pan transforms the pastry.  This is so much soft Danish pastry, layered with almond paste filling, crispy at the edges, chewy where the almond paste has oozed out and caramelized, and incredibly buttery.  You whip up the dough in five minutes before you scurry off to bed.  Then it takes a few minutes of rolling and folding in the morning.  It rises while you have a little coffee and then bakes for 45 minutes.  Just make it.

A kugelhopf pan is a fancy shape usually reserved for Alsatian kugelhopf, a cakey, brioche-like bread.  If you don’t have one, any tube pan or bundt pan will work just fine, too.  Since I have my grandma’s kugelhopf pan, I like to put it to good use, and the shape is quite pretty.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Kris Jacobson December 6, 2010 at 4:05 pm

oh my goodness. how mouthwateringly gorgeous.

2 Laura December 6, 2010 at 7:08 pm

You’re so sweet, Kris!

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