Fruit “Danish”

For the dough: Grease 3 cookie sheets or spray them with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine 1 1/2 cup flour, sugar, salt and yeast. Whisk together to blend.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk and butter until very warm (120-130 F).

Add the warm liquid, eggs, vanilla and butter extracts into the flour mixture. Blend on low speed until moistened then beat 3 minutes at medium speed. With a wooden spoon, stir in an additional 1 3/4 to 2 cups flour, stirring until the dough pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl.

Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead in 1/4-1/2 cup flour until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes. Cover the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into 24 pieces. Roll each piece into a 15″ rope. Loosely coil each rope into a circle, tucking the ends underneath the coil so that there is a solid surface on the bottom. Place the rolls on the prepared pans. Cover and let the dough rise in a warm place until light and doubled in size, about 45-60 minutes.

When the rolls are almost doubled in size, preheat the oven to 350 F.

Carefully brush the rolls with melted butter. Make a deep impression in the center of each roll and fill with the preserves or pie filling. Bake at 350 F for 10-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove pans from oven and set them on a rack.

Brush each roll lightly a second time with a little melted butter; remove rolls from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

For the glaze: In a small bowl combine the confectioners’ sugar and enough milk to reach the desired drizzling consistency.

Drizzle the glaze over each roll. Makes 24.

Notes: If choosing cherry as a filling, be sure to use cherry preserves rather than pie filling, because the preserves don’t have as much liquid and don’t tend to “run” as much as the pie filling. The photo above shows raspberry preserves and homemade apple filling. I chopped 4 medium Granny Smith apples and cooked them until tender with brown sugar and butter. Once the apples were tender, I stirred in cinnamon to taste and a touch of pure vanilla extract. When filling the rolls, I used just the apples, not a lot of the “syrup” that was left in the pan. If using canned apple pie filling, be sure to chop the apples before filling the rolls.

Adapted from Pillsbury Breads, Breads, Breads cookbook.