Sourdough Love Letter Pastries For Valentine’s Day
Sourdough love letter pastries make the perfect treat for Valentine’s Day. The flaky layers of the sourdough pastry dough pairs perfectly with some delicious strawberry or raspberry jam. These little pastries look just like love letters sent from your Valentine to you. They are fun to send with your kids to a Valentine’s Day party, or to have for breakfast on Valentines Day. They also make a delicious treat for breakfast in the summertime with some fresh fruit and homemade yogurt. You will get such a feeling of satisfaction from making something that looks so complicated out of something so healthy and simple.
Sourdough Pastry Dough
This sourdough pastry dough has an incredible depth of flavor and is flaky, tender and buttery. The best part about sourdough pastry dough is that it is healthy for you and made with just five simple ingredients you probably have on hand. If you make the dough ahead of time and allow it to long ferment , it will be easy for your body to digest because most of the gluten in the flour will have been broken down by the sourdough starter. If you’ve never tried sourdough pastry dough, I would encourage you to do so. It is one of our families favorites.
Why I Love These Sourdough Love Letter Pastries
- If you mix up the pastry dough ahead of time, you can bake these up and have them ready to eat in just a few minutes.
- These love letter pastries are a big hit with kids, they really like how they look like love notes.
- This is a fun kitchen project to do with your kids, especially if the dough has been mixed up ahead of time.
- These love letter pastries make the perfect snack or summertime breakfast.
- I like to make strawberry jam without pectin in the summertime with the fruit from our homestead, and these little pastries are a great way to use up some of the jam.
- Made with sourdough discard, you can long ferment the pastry dough for a few hours or several days in the refrigerator. This will give you all the gut health benefits from the sourdough.
- You could put different fillings in these pastries like pie filling or even a chocolate cream filling.
- These little pastries would make the cutest sweet treat for a little girls tea party.
Simple Ingredients
- Flour – I like to use unbleached all-purpose flour from Azure Standard. You can also make these with whole grain flour if desired.
- Salt – redmond salt is the healthiest because it contains a lot natural minerals. Salt actually brings out the sweet rich flavor in baked goods.
- Sugar – you can use regular white sugar, brown sugar or if you want a healthier option try this cane sugar from Azure Standard
- Butter – I like to use homemade butter
- Sourdough discard – I like to make this pastry dough with sourdough discard because it’s usually what I have in my refrigerator.
- Jam or pie filling – I like to make these using homemade jam made without pectin from the fruit on our homestead.
- Powdered sugar – for making the glaze.
- Milk or water – for making the glaze.
Other Sourdough Recipes You May Enjoy
Sourdough Discard Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
The Best Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe With A Sourdough Pie Crust
Strawberry Cheesecake Sourdough Sweet Rolls
Tips For Making These Love Letter Pastries
- If you make the sourdough pastry dough ahead of time, you can bake these pastries up easily for a quick and easy breakfast.
- For best results, use a thick jam for this recipe if possible.
- You could put any kind of filling in these love letter pastries. Use your imagination.
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Tools You May Need
- Stand mixer – my absolute favorite stand mixer is a bosch mixer. I’ve used it almost everyday for years and it has served me so well. We bake almost 100 loaves of bread for farmers market each week in the summertime. I know several people that have had bosch mixers for over 30 years and they are still running strong. Getting a bosch mixer is one of the best investments you can make for your kitchen. Get an extra $20 off when ordering from nutrimill.com/wagonwheel.
- Rolling pin
- Bench scraper – for cutting out the pastries
- Parchment paper
- 2 Baking sheets
- Small heart-shaped cookie cutter
- Small bowl – for mixing up the glaze
How To Make Sourdough Love Letter Pastries
Make The Pastry Dough
In the bowl of your stand mixer with the cake paddle attachment, or a large bowl, combine dry ingredients.
Shave or grate cold or frozen butter.
Add the cold butter to the dry mixture and “cut” in the butter. Use a mixer, or a fork or pastry blender if using a bowl until the mixture resembles small pebbles.
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Add the sourdough starter, and mix just until combined. If you’re using your stand mixer, switch to the dough hook attachment just before adding the sourdough starter. Be careful not to mix it too long. Too much mixing can make it tough.
Add a Tablespoon of flour or cold water as needed if dough seems too wet or too dry. I typically don’t have to do this, but you can if you need to.
Put in an airtight container or piece of plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.
This pastry dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks if needed.
To Make The Pastries
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface, keeping it as square as possible.
Using your bench scraper, cut 4” sections of pastry dough. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. The bench scraper is about 4” long, so using it makes it easy to make equal squares.
Be sure to leave a little bit of pastry dough for cutting out the small hearts that will “seal” our love letters.
You may have to re-roll the edges of the pastry dough and cut them into squares to use up all the dough.
Make sure a point of the dough squares are facing you on the cookie sheets, so they look like they are in a diamond shape.
Place 1 Tablespoon of jam or pie filling in the middle of each dough square.
Fold in the two side points and pinch them together. Fold up the bottom point and combine it with the other two points already joined together. Leave the top point unfolded so it looks like a love letter with the jam peaking out.
Place one dough heart over the top of where the points are joined together. This will look like a “seal” on your letters.
Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.
Can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week in the refrigerator, although I highly doubt these will last that long.
If you try this recipe and love it, please come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @wagonwheelhomestead21. I can’t wait to see what all you make!
Sourdough Love Letter Pastries
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 cups cold butter
- 2 cups sourdough discard
- Filling
- Strawberry or raspberry jam or pie filling
- Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
Make The Pastry Dough
- In the bowl of your stand mixer with the cake paddle attachment, or a large bowl, combine dry ingredients.
- Shave or grate cold or frozen butter.
- Add the cold butter to the dry mixture and “cut” in the butter. Use a mixer, or a fork or pastry blender if using a bowl until the mixture resembles small pebbles.
- Add the sourdough starter, and mix just until combined. If you’re using your stand mixer, switch to the dough hook attachment just before adding the sourdough starter. Be careful not to mix it too long. Too much mixing can make it tough.
- Add a Tablespoon of flour or cold water as needed if dough seems too wet or too dry. I typically don’t have to do this, but you can if you need to.
- Put in an airtight container or piece of plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.
- This pastry dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks if needed.
To Make The Pastries
- Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface, keeping it as square as possible.
- Using your bench scraper, cut 4” sections of pastry dough. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. The bench scraper is about 4” long, so using it makes it easy to make equal squares.
- Be sure to leave a little bit of pastry dough for cutting out the small hearts that will “seal” our love letters.
- You may have to re-roll the edges of the pastry dough and cut them into squares to use up all the dough.
- Make sure a point of the dough squares are facing you on the cookie sheets, so they look like they are in a diamond shape.
- Place 1 Tablespoon of jam or pie filling in the middle of each dough square.
- Fold in the two side points and pinch them together. Fold up the bottom point and combine it with the other two points already joined together. Leave the top point unfolded so it looks like a love letter with the jam peaking out.
- Place one dough heart over the top of where the points are joined together. This will look like a “seal” on your letters.
- Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.
- Can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week in the refrigerator, although I highly doubt these will last that long.
