The Dough Swap To Make A Quicker Kringle

Making a homemade kringle takes time and there is no way around it. Or is there? It takes multiple steps to create a kringle: Crafting the dough, preparing a filling, assembling the kringle, and then baking it and pouring a sweet glaze on top. The delicate dough alone can take several hours to prepare.

Made of all-purpose flour and bread flour, as well as sugar, yeast, salt, butter, milk, and egg, the kringle dough ingredients must be blended together before being kneaded. Then, the dough is chilled for a minimum of four hours, but can stay in the fridge for up to two days. The significant amount of time in the fridge allows the dough to develop and become smooth. But that's not the last of the chilling for the dough. It will need to be rolled out, folded into thirds, and wrapped and chilled for another 20 to 30 minutes before the process is repeated two more times. Then, you're finally ready to assemble the kringle. 

Plan on at least eight hours of chilling, an hour of prep, and 20 minutes of baking (total of 9 hours and 20 minutes) to make a kringle at home. Feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of time to make the pastry? Don't worry as there is a way to cut down on the work but not on the taste. 

A quintessential part of a kringle is its flaky and buttery dough, which can still be achieved without making the dough from scratch. Simply go to the grocery store and pick up a package of pre-made puff pastry. 

Found in the frozen food section, frozen puff pastry is a pre-made form of pâte feuilletée, which is the base for many French pastries, including mille feuille and tarte tatin. Like the kringle dough, pâte feuilletée goes through a lamination process when being made. Lamination is when the dough is wrapped around cold butter and rolled out. This process is repeated several times. Skipping the lamination, or the process of folding the dough several times, is not recommended because the folds help the butter to melt and traps the steam, allowing for multiple flaky layers. 

Substituting puff pastry for homemade dough in your kringle will eliminate much of the time and work involved in most recipes. And who doesn't love a sweet homemade pastry that can be enjoyed a little sooner?