Blueberry cream cheese danishes

Whisk the flour, sugar, kosher salt and active dry yeast together, keeping the yeast away from the salt as you add them.

Add a cup of room temperature water and mix by hand to a shaggy dough, then knead a few times in the bowl to pick up the dry areas.

Knead a few minutes by pressing the dough away with the heel of your palm, folding it back on itself and rotating. You are hydrating the flour and developing the gluten, because the dough has to extend and stretch without tearing.

Rise until more or less doubled, springing back but leaving a slight indentation. Active dry yeast means two rises.

Pre-shape the risen dough into a nine inch square of even thickness by tugging the four corners, wrap it and firm it up in the freezer — not frozen solid. Cold dough is not fermenting while you laminate.

Make the butter block: cut the European style butter up, mush it into one piece, wrap it loosely in parchment and beat it flat with a rolling pin, working in both directions into an even square with sharp corners. If it warms up, chill it.

Roll the dough back to nine by nine, set the butter block in as a diamond inside the square, fold the four corners to the centre, overlap and pinch to seal so no butter shows.

Tap the packet flat with the rolling pin, keeping the sides straight, then roll out to no more than a quarter inch and about three times longer than it is wide.

Fold in thirds for a simple turn: bottom third up onto the centre, top third down.

Do a second turn, wrap, and chill in the freezer then the fridge. Do a third turn after a further rest.

For the cheese filling, soften the cream cheese with a spatula, add the vanilla paste, the confectioner's sugar and the egg yolk, and switch to a whisk to smooth out the lumps and give it a little fluffiness. Transfer to a pastry bag.

For the blueberry filling, stir the fresh blueberries with the blueberry jam and the tablespoon of lemon juice.

Roll the laminated dough out into a slab about 10 by 16 at a quarter inch, flouring rather than letting it tear, and rest it ten minutes in the fridge if it springs back.

Trim the edges to expose the layers, then cut into 24 squares, six by four, and lay 12 on each of two baking sheets.

Prick the centre of each square once or twice with a fork so the filling stays flat while the rest of the dough puffs.

Pipe about a tablespoon of the cream cheese filling into the centre of each, then about a tablespoon of the blueberry filling on top.

Cover and proof until puffed, with the layers visibly separating.

Bake at 350 with racks in the top and bottom thirds, rotating and switching racks after 15 minutes. Do not open the oven before then.

Cool; the filling settles as it does.