Cream Cheese & Cranberry Danish

Servings

Prep

10 min

Cook

18 min

Back when I worked at Starbucks, they sold cream cheese danish’s. It sold quite well and a lot of it landed in my belly too, resulting in high quality padding for my bones and organs 😛 Their’s were of course made with real danish dough, while I just use puff pastry. One day when I have the patiences, I will try my hand at danish dough. Anyways, the past few weeks I have been craving that cream cheese danish. But I was thinking too much about it that I got scared of the thought of making it. The one sold at Starbucks was fully covered, like McDonald’s apple pie. That would require me to use more puff pastry so I decided to make an open-faced one.

I was also feeling a little left behind seeing that many other bloggers were churning out pumpkin recipes (it’s the season) and I’ve got no pumpkin recipe to give. Mainly because cutting a whole pumpkin is scary and buying it sliced is expensive. Canned pumpkin is not much of an option because it’s also expensive and why should I buy canned pumpkin puree when I could ‘easily’ make my own. So, instead of joining the crowd of pumpkin recipe churners, I decided to go with Cranberries. It’s cranberry season too and my local grocery store sells cranberries! Last year, I made 4 – 500 ml jars of cranberry jam and I still have one more jar left in my pantry. The jam that I use here is from last years batch and I am going to make a new batch of jam soon. Only thing is, I used too little jam on it in the pictures here. If you want more jam, do add more than just a teaspoon. 🙂

Potato Quality Step 4

Ingredients

1 rectangle or square (320g) Puff Pastry
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon Water
For dusting Powdered Sugar

Cream Cheese Filling

½ - ¾ cup Cream Cheese
2 Tablespoons Powdered Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 - 1½ teaspoon per Danish Cranberry Jam

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 190°C (375°F). Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Roll out puff pastry and cut into even squares or rectangles. (I got around 15)
Transfer to baking tray.
With a sharp knife, score an inner rectangle or square but do not cut all the way through. (See picture above. Helps puff pastry puff up without spilling the filling)
With a fork, prick the centre of the puff pastry rectangle.
In a small bowl, mix cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla extract.
Place about 2 teaspoons (or as you see fit) in the centre of the puff pastry.
Top cream cheese with 1 – 1½ teaspoon of cranberry jam (or any jam of your choice).
In another small bowl, beat an egg with 1 Tablespoon of water.
Brush the edges of the puff pastry .
Bake for 15-18 minutes or till the pastry is golden brown and puffed up.
Cool on a wire wrack and dust with powdered sugar once completely cooled.

Tips:

Always work with cold puff pastry.
Not a fan of sweet stuff? To make it savoury, simply omit the sugar, vanilla and jam. Instead add some salt, herbs, garlic granules to the cream cheese and top with gravlax after it’s baked.
Conversion Table

Enjoy and happy baking!