Danish Pastries

What happens when your mom wants you to use the rest of the puff pastry that is sitting in the fridge? Danish pastries happen. I received a Christmas gift in the mail last week - Illustrated Step-By-Step Baking by Caroline Bretherton. It. Is. Beautiful. That is where I came across the idea for these pastries. In the book, it gives a recipe for the pastry dough, but for a quick and easy treat, I used a premade dough. It also shows pictures of how to mix the dough, roll it out, and cut it. It makes recipes that are more advanced much easier to understand. The book also has variations of most of its recipes. Instead of only having a chocolate fudge cake ball recipe, it has strawberry and coconut too. The recipes range from whoopie pies to chicken pot pie. I can't wait to try every last one of them. I'm going to be doing a lot of baking from now on!

Personally, I really like raspberries. They're good with just about any dessert, which is why I chose to use red raspberry preserves for these pastries. Add cream cheese, and you have a creamy filling that isn't too sweet or overpowering. Of course, the cream cheese is optional. This recipe will work just as well with or without cream cheese. Another idea for this dessert - serve it with ice cream!

Danish Pastries
makes 9

Ingredients:

One sheet of Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry
1/3 cup red raspberry preserves
about 1 1/2 oz cream cheese, room temperature
egg (beaten, for egg wash)

Directions
Preheat oven to 400° F

Warm the cream cheese in the microwave for about ten seconds if it isn't at room temperature. Mix the preserves and cream cheese together. Set aside.

Place puff pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. Cut the pastry into 3 1/2 inch squares. Cut each square, starting at the corner, about 3/4 inch out from the center. Place about a teaspoon of the raspberry mixture in the center and fold the corners into the center. It should look like this when you begin to fold...

After folding all of the corners towards the center, drop a little more of the raspberry mixture over the center. Brush the dough with egg wash and place on a baking sheet.

Bake in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. After taking the pastries out of the oven, use a metal spatula to detach the pastries from the cookie sheet. Let set for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.