Awesome & Easy Cheese Danish

I love Cheese Danish. But not all bakeries make good ones. This year I decided to learn how to make them myself. What you see on the left is my third attempt and oh boy were they yummy!

Unfortunately I can't recall where I found the recipe that I adapted slightly to create these. 

Since I'm not a very good pastry maker and I hate the mess, I cheated and used frozen Puff Pastry to make these. They are filled with creamy delight in an amazing flaky pastry. Here is what you will need to duplicate these:

1/2 of a box of Puff Pastry. It will make 4 Cheese Danishes. Make sure it is thawed but don't leave it too long or it will go soggy and gluey.

Puff Pastry, eggs, lemon for zest, cream cheese

Filling:
1/2 cup cream cheese
3 Tbsp. white sugar
1 Tbsp. Sour Cream
1 heaped tsp. lemon zest
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Make sure all the filling ingredients are room temperature before you start mixing them.

Grating the lemon rind to make zest

To make lemon zest, take a grater and grate the lemon rind. Don't grate down to the white part, you just want the yellow rind.  I like to grate lemons when they are cold not warm so grate your lemon into lemon zest and then let it come to room temperature.

Adding Cream Cheese to Mixture

 You also need one whole egg beaten and mixed with a bit of water. You're going to use this as an egg wash.


Once the ingredients have reached room temperature, mix them in a small bowl or measuring cup. They can be lumpy, don't overmix them.

Lemon Zest added

 Roll out the puff pastry on a floured board or pastry mat until you have a sheet about 12x12 inches. Using a pastry cutter, slice it into four equal portions. Place these on parchment paper on a baking tray.

Divide the mixed filling into four equal portions and place in the middle of each pastry quarter. Brush the egg wash around the edges of each pastry quarter, then pull up two opposite sides to overlap in the middle.

Place the baking tray in the fridge to cool and rest for 30 minutes. Then cover all the pastry with more egg wash and bake in 350' oven for 20-25 minutes.





Remove from oven, let cool about 5 minutes then dust liberally with powdered sugar.

You can eat these warm or cool and they are delicious either way.

Mixing the filling ingredients

Roll out Pastry to approximately 12x12 square

Cut pastry into four. It doesn't have to be perfect

 Place pastry squares on parchment paper which is on a baking tray.

Filling in middle, egg wash edges

 Be generous with your egg wash. See how lumpy the filling is? That doesn't seem to matter.

Fold pastry

After all the pastry is folded, place the baking sheet in your fridge for 30 minutes.

Ready for oven

Remove pastry from fridge, brush with reserved egg wash and it's ready for the oven!

Danish pastries browned and out of the oven. These took 23 minutes at 350

I dusted them with powdered sugar while they were still warm and on the baking tray. Then I let cool for about 5 minutes before serving.

These Cheese Danish are ready for serving. Coffee on, tea made and you can serve them to guests or enjoy all of them yourself!