Cream Cheese Puff Pastry Danish

If you haven’t used puff pastry sheets before, this is a perfect recipe to try! I love using frozen, prepared puff pastry, it is instant dough and as it bakes it puffs up into glorious light and flaky pastry. To use puff pastry sheets in this recipe, you leave the pastry sheets on the counter to thaw, cut them into squares, score and prick the pastry, and fill them with cream cheese and berry filling. No yeast is needed like with many other breakfast treats or waiting for the dough to rise, and it comes together pretty quickly.

The possibilities for fillings are endless! We are partial to this Cream Cheese Danish filling though. The vanilla almond cream cheese filling, berry and preserve topping, and creamy almond icing are an amazing combination. We love doing half with a blueberry filling and the other half with raspberry. The berry topping options are flexible, try blackberry, strawberry, or canned cherry pie filling.

If you are looking for other delicious sweet breakfasts, try our recipe for Orange French Toast.

You will need the following ingredients:

• Frozen puff pastry
• Cream cheese
• Granulated sugar
• Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Vanilla extract
• Almond extract
• Eggs
• Raspberry preserves
• Raspberries
• Blueberry preserves
• Blueberries
• Milk
• Powdered sugar

I know what it’s like when you don’t have everything on hand and the last thing you want to do is run to the store and pick something up. Here are a few ideas to substitute items on the ingredients list if needed:

1. Different berries and preserves could be used. For example, strawberries, blackberries, or a canned fruit filling like apple or cherry.
2. You could substitute the extract by only using vanilla or almond.
3. You could substitute bottled lemon juice for fresh lemon juice in a pinch.
4. Powdered sugar could substitute for the granulated sugar if needed.
5. You could use a gluten-free pastry dough, Sweet Loren’s is a brand our grocery store carries.

Step 1. Beat together cream cheese and granulated sugar until creamy. Mix in lemon juice, vanilla extract, almond extract, and egg yolk. Set aside. In 2 separate small bowls, gently mix together raspberries with raspberry preserves and blueberries with blueberry preserves.

Step 2. Roll puff pastry into a 12 x 12-inch square on parchment paper. With a pizza cutter cut into 4-inch squares.

Step 3. With a sharp knife, score the dough ¼ inch inside the borders of the square. Poke the inside of the square with a fork. In a bowl combine egg and milk, and brush the mixture on the border of each square.

Step 4. Fill the middle of each square with about 2 teaspoons of the cream cheese mixture. Add 1 teaspoon of preserves with 2 pieces of fruit on top of the cream cheese.

Step 5. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes.

Step 6. Whisk together powdered sugar, milk, and almond extract. Drizzle icing over the puff pastry squares and serve.

• When thawing the dough, don’t keep it at room temperature for too long, it should still be cold when using. It should unfold easily and be cold to the touch. If it’s too frozen, it can tear more easily. When working with one puff pastry, I cover and refrigerate the other so it doesn’t dry out or get too warm.
• Try to handle the puff pastry with your hands as little as possible and work quickly to keep the butter cold in the pastry. If it’s too warm, you won’t get the flaky layers you want.
• When cutting puff pastry, you want to cut it straight down, a pizza cutter works great. Never use a serrated knife which will affect the layers when cutting.