Tebirkes were my favorite Danish pastry when I lived in Copenhagen. One of the many types of wienerbrød this one is flaky and not too sweet. They go great with a cup of tea anytime. When my pastry chef gave me a super easy recipe for a puffpastry-like dough, I decided it was time to make my own. Birkes is Danish for poppy seeds and tebirkes are basically a butter dough folded over a marzipan spread and sprinkled with poppy seeds.
Here's the recipe. Makes about 12
The dough
- half pound butter
- half pound cream cheese
- half pound flour
The Filling
- Half cup marzipan ( you can buy it in tubes in the baking section of supermarkets)
- Half cup butter
Step One
- Cut the butter and cream cheese into 1 cm cubes
- Dust with some flour and combine in a paddle mixer
- Add rest of flour and mix until just combined ( should be still a bit streaky)
- wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour
Step Two
- Cream the butter and marzipan into a spread
- Roll dough into a long rectangle about a half cm thick
- spread middle third of dough with marzipan mix
- Fold first third of dough over the middle and fold the other third over the first
- Cut the dough "log" into 5cm pieces, brush with eggwash and sprinkle with poppy seeds
- refrigerate again, and when hard, bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes until golden
These turned out really great and Sarah's recipe is so much easier than making butter puff pastry from scratch
