Let’s make homemade breakfast pastries using a variation of classic Danish pastry dough. We’re working the butter directly into the dough, which is a different method from laminating it with separate layers of butter. These breakfast pastries are buttery and flaky with sweet fillings and a drizzle of vanilla icing. For best success, use the video tutorial and photos, as well as the carefully explained recipe for guidance.
This recipe is brought to you in partnership with Red Star Yeast.
Do you remember when I published a shortcut variation of Danish pastry dough? You might not—it was several years ago! Since then, I’ve created a raspberry pastry braid and a blueberry cream cheese pastry braid using that same dough. Let’s take it a step further and make individual homemade breakfast pastries.
Researching their origin, I learned that traditional Danish pastries came to life around the 1850s by Austrian bakers working in Denmark. What started as the Austrian pastry known as Plundergebäck developed into what is now known as danishes. There are many ways to make, top, shape, and serve these pastries and that usually depends on the region. Here in the US, we can usually find them topped with fruit, jams, and sweetened cream cheese fillings. Bottom line: we’re all so very thankful for these sweets!
This is a Shortcut Homemade Pastry
Before I describe these homemade pastries and show you how to make them, let me explain this pastry dough variation. This is a shortcut version—it’s not the traditional method of making real danishes. This dough is usually laminated several times between layers of butter, similar to how we prepare homemade croissants and croissant bread. Here we are working the butter directly into the dough using a food processor. We’re still rolling out and folding the dough, just as you do when you laminate dough with butter, but we’re not folding it up with a separate layer of butter.
I use the term “shortcut” loosely as this dough still takes at least 5-6 hours total with 2 rounds of refrigeration. They’re just as buttery and flaky as the real thing!
Are you looking for a dough that’s more similar to puff pastry? We skip the lamination in this rough puff pastry dough as well. (And that recipe skips yeast unlike today’s yeasted dough, which creates slightly puffier pastries.)
I have the full written recipe below, as well as step-by-step photos and careful explanations below the recipe. This post is rather long, so I wanted to add most of the details below the recipe. I can’t wait for you to try these at home!
These Homemade Breakfast Pastries Are:
- Made from a modified yeasted pastry dough
- Crisp, flaky, & extra buttery
- Ready for your favorite breakfast pastry fillings
- Topped with sweet vanilla icing
Plus, you can easily make this dough in 1 morning or over the course of 3 days. I love make-ahead dough where you have plenty of options in terms of timing. You can also freeze half the dough if 16 pastries are too many or even make 8 pastries and 1 pastry braid!
Filling Ideas
You need around 2/3 cup of filling for the entire recipe (16 breakfast pastries). Feel free to mix and match, creating different flavors in your batch.
- Jam or Preserves, such as raspberry, peach, or strawberry
- Pumpkin Butter or Apple Butter
- Lemon Curd
- Cherry Pie Filling
- Nutella
- Cream Cheese Filling (my favorite and detailed in the recipe below)
Use This Dough to Make Pastry Braids
I love a versatile dough! Just as we can use pizza dough to make pizza, cheesy breadsticks, garlic knots, and pepperoni pizza rolls, we can use this homemade pastry dough to make individual pastries and pastry braids. I haven’t perfected other shapes yet, but feel free to try. Make sure you chill any shaped pastries before baking to help guarantee they hold their shape. See step 13 and corresponding recipe note below.
Baker’s Tip: I find that the braids bake up even flakier than the individual pastries! I have a video tutorial showing you how to shape this pastry braid. It’s easier than it looks.
See Your Breakfast Pastries!
Many readers tried this recipe as part of a baking challenge! Feel free to email or share your recipe photos with us on social media. 🙂
Step-by-step photos below!
PrintBreakfast Pastries with Shortcut Homemade Dough
- Prep Time: 6 hours (includes chilling)
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 6 hours, 25 minutes
- Yield: 16 pastries
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Danish
Description
These homemade breakfast pastries use a variation of classic Danish pastry dough. We’re working the butter directly into the dough, which is a different method from laminating it with separate layers of butter. Make sure the butter is very cold before beginning. This recipe yields 2 pounds of dough.
Ingredients
Pastry Dough
- 1/4 cup (60ml) warm water (between 100-110°F, 38-43°C)
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons Platinum Yeast from Red Star (1 standard packet)*
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (120ml) whole milk, at room temperature (between 68–72°F, 20-22°C)
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 14 Tablespoons (196g) unsalted butter, cold
- 2 and 1/2 cups (313g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for generously flouring hands, surface, and dough
Filling
- 2/3 cup filling (see recipe notes for options & cheese filling)
Egg Wash
- 1 large egg
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml) milk
Vanilla Icing (Optional)
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml) milk or heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preliminary note: To help guarantee success, I recommend reading through the recipe, watching the video tutorial, and reading the explanations below this recipe. (All answer many FAQs.) Do not use an electric mixer for this dough. It’s best if the dough is folded together with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula since it is so sticky. There is very minimal mixing required.
- Make the Pastry Dough: Whisk the warm water, yeast, and 1 Tablespoon (6g) of sugar together in a large bowl. Cover and allow to rest until foamy on top, about 5 minutes. If the surface doesn’t have bubbles on top or look foamy after 15 minutes (it should if the yeast isn’t expired), start over with a fresh packet of yeast. Whisk in remaining sugar, the milk, egg, and salt. Once these wet ingredients are mixed together, lightly cover and set the bowl aside as you work on the next step.
- Cut the cold butter into 1/4 inch slices and add to a food processor or blender. Top with 2 and 1/2 cups flour. Pulse the mixture 12-15 times, until butter is crumbled into pea-size bits. See photo below for a visual. Using a food processor or blender is best for this dough. Keeping that in mind, if you don’t have one, you can use a pastry cutter to work in the butter.
- Pour the flour mixture into the wet yeast mixture. Very gently fold everything together using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Fold *just until* the dry ingredients are moistened. The butter must remain in pieces and crumbles, which creates a flaky pastry. Turn the sticky dough out onto a large piece of plastic wrap, parchment paper, aluminum foil, or into any container you can tightly cover.
- 1st Refrigeration: Wrap the dough/cover up tightly and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to 48 hours.
- Roll & Fold: Take the dough out of the refrigerator to begin the “rolling and folding” process. If the dough sat for more than 4 hours, it may have slightly puffed up and that’s ok. (It will deflate as you shape it, which is also ok.) Very generously flour a work surface. The dough is very sticky, so make sure you have more flour nearby as you roll and fold. Using the palm of your hands, gently flatten the dough into a small square. Using a rolling pin, roll out into a 15×8 inch rectangle. When needed, flour the work surface and dough as you are rolling. Fold the dough into thirds as if it were a business letter. (See photos and video tutorial.) Turn it clockwise and roll it out into a 15 inch long rectangle again. Then, fold into thirds again. Turn it clockwise. You’ll repeat rolling and folding 1 more time for a total of 3 times.
- 2nd Refrigeration: Wrap up/seal tightly and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours. You can also freeze the dough at this point. See freezing instructions.
- Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Rimmed baking sheets are best because butter may leak from the dough as it bakes. If you don’t have rimmed baking sheets, when it’s time to preheat the oven, place another baking sheet on the oven rack below to catch any butter that may drip.
- Take the dough out of the refrigerator and cut it in half. Wrap 1 half up and keep refrigerated as you work with the first half. (You can freeze half of the dough at this point, use the freezing instructions below.)
- Shape into rounds: Cut the first half of dough into 8 even pieces. This will be about 1/4 cup of dough per pastry. Roll each into balls. Flatten each into a 2.5 inch circle. Use your fingers to create a lip around the edges. See photos and video tutorial if needed. Press the center down to flatten the center as much as you can so you can fit the filling inside. (Center puffs up as it bakes.) Arrange pastries 3 inches apart on a lined baking sheet. Repeat with second half of dough.
- Spoon 2 teaspoons of fruity filling or 1 Tablespoon of cheese filling inside each.
- Egg Wash: Whisk the egg wash ingredients together. Brush on the edges of each shaped pastry.
- This step is optional, but I very strongly recommend it. Chill the shaped pastries in the refrigerator, covered or uncovered, for at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour. See recipe note. You can preheat the oven as they finish up chilling.
- Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C).
- Bake for 19-22 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Some butter may leak from the dough, that’s completely normal and expected. Feel free to remove the baking sheets from the oven halfway through baking and brush the dough with any of the leaking butter, then place back in the oven to finish baking. (That’s what I do!)
- Remove baked pastries from the oven. Cool for at least 5 minutes before icing/serving.
- Make the icing: Whisk the icing ingredients together. If you want a thicker icing, whisk in more confectioners’ sugar. If you want a thinner icing, whisk in more milk or cream. Drizzle over warm pastries and serve.
- Cover leftover iced or un-iced pastries and store at room temperature for 1 day or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Or you can freeze them for up to 3 months. Thaw before serving. Before enjoying, feel free to reheat leftover iced or un-iced pastries in the microwave for a few seconds until warmed.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Prepare the dough as instructed in steps 2-4. At this point the dough can be refrigerated up to 48 hours. You can also prepare the dough through step 6. At this point the dough can be refrigerated up to 24 hours. During or after this second chilling time, you could also freeze the dough for up to 1 month. (I don’t recommend freezing the dough before the rolling and folding step.) Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then continue with step 8. You can also freeze the unfilled pastries after shaping them in step 10. Thaw in the refrigerator, then continue with step 11.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Wooden Spoon or Rubber Spatula | Whisk | Glass Mixing Bowl | Food Processor, Blender, or Pastry Cutter | Rolling Pin | Rimmed Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Pastry Brush
- Fruity Fillings: You need around 2/3 cup (about 200g) of filling for the entire recipe (16 pastries). Use jam or fruit preserves, pumpkin butter, apple butter, lemon curd, cherry pie filling, etc. Or even Nutella! You need 2 heaping teaspoons per pastry. Feel free to mix and match, making different flavors in your batch.
- Cheese Filling: Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium speed, beat one 8 ounce block (224g) of full-fat cream cheese that is softened at room temperature in a medium bowl until smooth. Beat in 1 large egg yolk, 1/3 cup (67g) granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract until smooth. Use 1 scant Tablespoon per pastry. Feel free to dot the cream cheese filling with fresh berries before baking or mix fruit preserves in with the cream cheese filling (still using 2-3 teaspoons of filling per pastry).
- Temperature & Substitutions: The temperature of your ingredients is imperative to this pastry’s success. Make sure you take the time to warm the water and bring the milk to room temperature. Keep the butter in the refrigerator until you need it in step 3. I do not recommend any substitutions in this carefully formulated dough, though a lower fat or nondairy milk works in a pinch. For the egg wash and icing, low fat or nondairy milks work, as do heavy cream or half-and-half.
- Yeast: Platinum Yeast from Red Star is an instant yeast. If needed, you can use active dry yeast instead. The instructions and amount remain exactly the same regardless of which you use.
- Optional Step (step 13): Chilling the shaped pastries in the refrigerator helps them maintain their shape in the oven. Remember, cold pastry dough is best. I usually refrigerate them for 15 minutes as the oven preheats. If you’re nervous to chill the baking sheets in the refrigerator then bake them (which can cause warping), you have two other options. You can simply assemble the pastries on parchment paper or silicone baking mats, lift the parchment/baking mat as a whole and place on another baking sheet or directly onto a shelf in the refrigerator. After chilling, carefully lift up and place the entire parchment/baking mat onto the baking sheets for baking. Or you can use a thin spatula and very carefully transfer the assembled unbaked pastries to a large plate to chill.
- Halve the Recipe? I don’t recommend halving this dough recipe. Make the dough as written, then freeze half after step 9. Or make 8 breakfast pastries and 1 pastry braid (cream cheese or raspberry).
- Dough recipe adapted from Cooking Illustrated, Joy of Cooking, and Beatrice Ojakangas
Detailed Explanations: How to Make Homemade Breakfast Pastries
This yeasted pastry dough comes together with 8 basic ingredients.
- Water: You need 2 liquids in this dough recipe: warm water and room temperature milk. Don’t use all water or all milk; this careful balance is key. Mix the warm water with yeast and some granulated sugar. Cover and wait until the top is a little foamy, as pictured below. (You will do this step no matter if you are using instant yeast or active-dry yeast.)
- Yeast: You can use active dry yeast or instant yeast. The instructions, amount, and recipe do not change– you will still do each of these exact steps regardless of which type you use. I recommend Platinum Yeast from Red Star, which is an instant yeast that is blended with natural dough improvers.
- Granulated Sugar: Sugar sweetens this dough and feeds the yeast. Use 1 Tablespoon at first, then add the rest of the sugar when you whisk in the milk, egg, and salt.
- Whole Milk: Use room temperature milk, not warm milk. For best taste and texture, I strongly recommend whole milk.
- Egg: 1 egg tenderizes the dough. Don’t skip it!
- Salt: Adds flavor.
- All-Purpose Flour: You need flour in the dough, plus a generous amount for the rolling, folding, and shaping steps. As you can see in my video tutorial above, it’s helpful to have plenty of extra flour on hand. I use a lot of it!
- Cold Butter: Butter is the main ingredient in this dough recipe– you will work it directly into the flour, forming pea-sized crumbles. Just like when we make pie crust or biscuits, make sure the butter is extra cold. If the butter isn’t cold, the butter will melt, the dough will turn to semi-liquid, and you won’t have any layers or flakes in your pastry. The colder the butter (and dough), the better results.
After the yeast has proofed and foamed (above), whisk in the rest of the sugar, the milk, egg, and salt. We’ll call these the wet ingredients:
You need a food processor blender for this recipe. If you have neither, use a pastry cutter to cut the cold butter into the flour. An electric mixer will not work for this step. You are looking for pea-size crumbles of flour coated butter. This step is only possible if the butter is cold.
Pour the butter/flour crumbles into the wet ingredients and fold it together using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. It is very sticky. Since this dough is so sticky, I do not recommend using an electric mixer. It will create a huge mess! There is minimal mixing required anyway– we don’t want to overwork this dough.
You’ll notice many bits of butter still visible in the dough– that’s a GOOD thing! Wrap the dough up tightly and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to 48 hours.
This is the 1st refrigeration.
Shortcut Lamination
Now let’s do a variation of laminating aka rolling and folding dough and butter together. Remember when we made croissants and laminated the dough with a sheet of butter? The butter is IN this pastry dough. So, instead, we’re just rolling and folding the dough itself. Roll it out into a 15×8 inch rectangle:
Fold it in thirds like a letter:
Turn it clockwise:
Then roll it out into a 15-inch rectangle again. Repeat the folding. Turn it clockwise again. Repeat rolling and folding 1 more time for a total of 3 times. Wrap the laminated dough up tightly and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.
This is the 2nd refrigeration.
How to Shape Homemade Breakfast Pastries
This dough recipe yields 16 breakfast pastries. See recipe note above about halving/freezing the dough. Cut the dough in half. (Work with only half the dough at once. Wrap half up and refrigerate until ready to use.) Cut the half of dough into 8 pieces. Roll into balls:
Flatten each into a 2.5 inch circle. Use your fingers to create a lip around the edges. Arrange pastries 3 inches apart on a lined baking sheet. Repeat with second half of dough.
Spoon your filling of choice inside each, then brush the edges of the pastries with egg wash, which is a combination of 1 egg and milk.
What is the purpose of an egg wash? It guarantees a shiny and crisp golden crust.
To help guarantee the shaped pastries hold their shape, chill them in the refrigerator as the oven preheats and even up to 1 hour. (See recipe note above.)
Bake until the breakfast pastries are golden brown. Cool for a few minutes, then drizzle with vanilla icing and serve!
Made this today… They were super amazing! They were very easy to make and tasted so good!
Hi I finished my first half and they were as delicious as I expected but I really struggled with keeping the shapes after filling. I’m not sure if it was them puffing up or a bit of “melting” but i was always strict about chilling the dough but it would still give me grief even after re-chilling them before filling. It wasn’t overly sticky but should I use more flour or just be faster lol? Thanks for this recipe and many others. My mom took some of these to her friends at bridge today and they loved them.
These came out great for me; easy and fun recipe! I used some Michigan cherry jam that I had on hand, and it was delicious! My food processor seems to have a little bit smaller capacity, so I need more like 15-18 pulses to get the flour and butter to the right consistency.
Awesome recipe, very clear and great directions. These are amazing and after I baked 2 were immediately eaten and family is going for more. Likely won’t last 3 days with my two adult kids around.
So so good! This recipe was very easy to follow thanks to Sally’s detailed explanations and video. I had never made breakfast pastries before this recipe, but now I plan to make these for all special breakfast/brunches. Even though this was a short cut version, the dough still had plenty of flakiness and a scrumptious buttery flavor. Thanks for helping me learn a new baking skill!
These are delicious! I had to make them twice because the first time I over baked them, and I also wanted to see if I could get more rise by sticking the dough in the freezer for a bit. They came out very puffy! Thanks for another amazing recipe 🙂
Delicious results for my first pastry dough!
I enjoyed using this clear and easy-to-follow recipe to make breakfast pastries. I started making the pastry dough on a Saturday, then let it chill overnight for the first refrigeration and completed the recipe the next day.
The most challenging part for me was blending the cold butter into the flour, and I found that breaking the butter apart with my hands had a better effect than putting it all into my blender at once (I probably should have done that part in batches in the blender). Some of the butter must have melted during this process, because the dough was still a bit wet afterwards. But if you have a food processor, this shouldn’t be an issue.
I had a great time making this recipe, and it was a fantastic learning experience! This is definitely a recipe to recommend, especially to any pastry dough beginners like myself.
Wonderful recipe and great video for newbies to laminating dough! The pastry is not overly sweet and easy to control the sweetness with the glaze and filling. I followed the directions exactly (including refrigeration after specific steps) and they came out perfect!
Awesome, easy recipe!
This was so easy to do and the results were to die for! I have always wanted to try a laminated type dough and by following the well written instructions and the video a few times I felt very confident. Baked them in the morning and made the house smell so good. Thanks Sally!
Loved this recipe!
My first time making rough puff and the instructions were super helpful and easy to follow.
I loved the braid the best, as my breakfast pastries exploded a little ( I think I overfilled them) but am looking forward to making these again in the future!
OMG!! So worth the time to make these! Buttery flaky and sweet- what more can u ask for. Might dough too was very sticky and had to add lots more to make it workable. I was using Italian double 00 flour so that might be the issue. But they turned out delicious and I will be making them again soon!
Love this super buttery and flaky dough.
I am in Germany, for some reason my dough was very, very wet, so I had to use a lot of flour to make it workable. If you are in another country, you may need way more flour than said.
I also went a little crazy trying to create different shapes. Regardless of what you make, don’t make them too big as otherwise your filling may seep.
Hi Sally,
I made these with lemon curd and raspberry jam. The jam ones were fantastic but the lemon curd leaked/evaporated and there was no filling left when they came out of the oven. My only thought it that maybe the lemon curd was too thin or possibly oven was too hot. Any suggestions/tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Hi Samantha, If you wish to try them again see the recipe notes in the post for lemon curd on how to make a thicker curd. That should help!
Had so much fun making this with my five and a half year old twins. I think in the rolling out stage, they had more flour on them then we did on the table, but that’s all part of the fun! Mine seemed to finish baking by about 16 minutes though- so definitely important to keep an eye on them through the bake time and not just assume 19+ minutes. Will definitely add this to the roster to bake again! Would like to master the art of forming the dough so filling stays well contained during bake time.
Really fun! And delicious. These worked just as the recipe said.
These turned out fabulous. Love the shortcut recipe, quick and easy. Sally give perfect instructions, everything explained. If followed as directed, you can’t go wrong. Absolutely delicious!
We made the breakfast pastries as part of the August baking challenge. I was pretty excited about the recipe but intimidated by all the steps involved. I wondered if it would be worth it or not… Oh my gosh, these pastries are ahhhhmazing. Better than any pastry I’ve had at a bakery. We invited our neighbors over to have a pastry and they were all gone within a few minutes. Everybody was eating two or three of them. I thought making 16 at a time would be way too many and boy was I wrong. I like using the cream cheese filling mixed with jelly the best for the filling. My boys and I had a lot of fun making these as they are challenging and we learned new skills and had fun in the process. This was such a great recipe to choose for the baking challenge, in my opinion. My taste buds are thanking you
These were delicious! It was my first time baking with yeast and the instructions were so easy to follow. My family gobbled up my individual pastries AND a braid in no time! I’ll definitely be making these again and trying out different filling flavours.
These were so good and easy to make that I’ve made them twice in the past week alone with various fillings! Both times I assembled the dough and then left it in the refrigerator overnight. The fan favorite filling was definitely cream cheese with strawberry preserves!
I loved the challenge this month because it was something I never would have thought to try on my own. I’ve had Danish pastries before but I never was really blown away by any of them. Watching the videos and following the steps carefully made me confident in this recipe! The strawberry filling is my favorite and is so delish. Next time I have family over for breakfast these will be on the menu. They are flaky, light, and can be sweet or savory. Thank you Sally!
These were SO good, they disappeared in my house in no time. The recipe was so well laid-out and made my first try at a pastry recipe super simple. Thanks, Sally!!
Delicious! I made half with the cheesecake filling and half with homemade strawberry jam. They’re so good I have another batch of dough chilling in the fridge already! Sally’s recipe is so easy to follow that something that looked too hard to try was fun with just the right amount of challenging.
I made these and absolutely loved them! The recipe was easy to follow and they turned out amazing!
Just finished testing one!!!! Yum!! Once again Sally’s easy directions for something I would have been intimidated to try. Had cream cheese, lemon curd, and raspberry filling! Delicious.
Eeeep these tasted so good!! Some of the butter I added was a tad too soft though and I think that’s what made my pastries somewhat bread-like. I guess I’ll just have to bake them again sometime! :). Thanks for a great recipe.
I have never made breakfast pastry before so was a bit intimidated. They turned out really well. The only thing I would change is working with half of the dough throughout. I worked with half the dough and formed them into the pastry shape, left them in the baking tray on the counter and then worked with the other half. By the time I got back to the first batch to fill them and egg wash them, they had risen a bit and the center wasn’t as defined. But they were super tasty. I did the cream cheese filling and they were just as good refrigerated the next day! I will be making these again!
I’m excited to make this! Quick question – would there be any adjustments if I use pastry flour? I have a whole bag that I don’t know what to do with!
Hi Caitlin, I fear pastry flour may actually be too light for these pastries. Doesn’t make sense since these are pastries, but I fear it wouldn’t hold up to all the butter inside the dough. If you try it, however, please let me know.
So good and versatile pastry recipe! I love baking with yeast, it’s so intriguing to me, and I loved picking and making my own flavors for the inside of the pastries! I made some with just raspberry jam, some with a modified version of your cream cheese filling with blueberries, some that were s’mores with melted chocolate, marshamallow, and crushed graham cracker, and some that were chocolate almond I made modifying a recipe for a fudge pie filling and adding almond flour and almond extract! This has been one of the funnest baking challenges yet!
These turned out great! Thank you for such detailed instructions. For fillings, I made your Cream Cheese recipe (wonderful!) and used it both by itself and also mixed with strawberry preserves. I also used the strawberries preserves solo and used Nutella. The cream cheese strawberry mixture was my favorite, hands down. Thank you!