Puff Pastry Sticks with Brown Sugar and Cinnamon

From Norwegian Cakes and Cookies by Sverre Saetre

Puff pastry is a classic baked good that has a long tradition in Norwegian baking. This pastry is an important part of the pastry chef examination, and there are probably more than a few who have wept over it. To get puff pastry to rise correctly is, namely, an art. It is folded, buttered, and rolled until you have 256 layers. Puff pastry in itself does not have much flavor, but it has fantastic texture. You can combine it with savory just as much as with sweet, so this dough is used a lot in the savory kitchen, as well. It’s filled with meat, fish, vegetables, and stews, and in the past there were many pastry chefs who worked supplying chefs with puff pastry. Now, industry has pretty much taken over. We make our own puff pastry in my bakery, but it is very tedious, so I recommend buying it from the freezer section. Here, I have made sticks out of it and flavored it with sugar and cinnamon. These sticks are good to munch on, and are ideally suited as an accompaniment to desserts with rich creams and sour fruit or berries.

Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry
1 egg
1 tspn cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 335 degrees Fahrenheit (170 degrees Celcius).
2. Roll the the puff pastry dough on a floured surface until it is 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick.
3. Whisk the egg with a fork and brush it on the dough.
4. Mix the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle it over the sheet of dough.
5. Use a pastry cutter or divide the dough into rods of 1/2 x 3 inch(1 x 8 cm). Lay them on parchment paper and bake until they rise and turn golden, about 12 – 15 minutes.
6. Let cool then serve.

Variations:
Replace the brown sugar and cinnamon with:

• grated firm white goat cheese and paprika
• poppy seeds
• finely chopped nuts
• cinnamon and crushed, dried apples

Recipe courtesy of Norwegian Cakes and Cookies by Sverre Saetre

Norway [ print this recipe for Puff Pastry Sticks with Brown Sugar and Cinnamon ]