Saturday, July 31, 2010

Strawberry Cheese Danish







So I haven't had a post in more than a week! 0.0 This week, I've been so busy hanging out with friends, watching Inception (Really great movie btw. It's mind boggling! haha), playing some mini golf, eating out, and playing pool and video games at Gameworks, that I didn't have time to really make anything and have a post. But here I am, back with another post just for you guys! :) As I type this, I am pretty much exhausted so I'm going to keep it short and simple. Hope that's alright! This week's creation was Strawberry Cheese Danish. Ina Garten has another appearance this week. This recipe is extremely simple to follow! The filling is the only thing that you have to work to put together but I was able to whip that up in no time. I made a few changes to the recipe though because the original recipe is for a Cheese Danish not a Strawberry Cheese Danish. I put all the measurements I used below. Overall, the flavor was great. It almost tasted like strawberry cheesecake! However, I did not like the texture of the filling at all. Maybe I'm wrong but shouldn't the filling be creamy? Instead of being creamy, the filling had more of a "curdled" texture which I believe came from the egg yolk. I searched other recipes and they also said to add an egg yolk. But!! I did find a recipe that used flour instead of the egg yolk! That might create a smoother filling than what I had. Here's the recipe and changes to it!!

Strawberry Cheese Danish (Makes 8 Danishes)
Ingredients
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
2 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature (Another recipe called for 2 tbsp of flour)
2 tablespoons ricotta cheese (I completely omitted this)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1/2 cup Strawberry Preserves or Jam
2 sheets (1 box) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Place the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and cream them together on low speed until smooth. With the mixer still on low, add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest and mix until just combined. Don't whip!

Unfold 1 sheet of puff pastry onto a lightly floured board and roll it slightly with a floured rolling pin until it's a 10 by 10-inch square. Cut the sheet into quarters with a sharp knife. Place a heaping tablespoon of cheese filling into the middle of each of the 4 squares. Then place a tablespoon of the strawberry preserves or jam onto the cheese filling. Brush the border of each pastry with egg wash and fold 2 opposite corners to the center, brushing and overlapping the corners of each pastry so they firmly stick together. Brush the top of the pastries with egg wash. Place the pastries on the prepared sheet pan. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry and refrigerate the filled Danish for 15 minutes.

Bake the pastries for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan once during baking, until puffed and brown. Serve warm.

Cream Cheese Danish on Foodista
-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
Facebook Fan Page

10 comments:

  1. Used to always get these at the grocery store. Going to see inception today. Hope it is good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They look great! I love Danish pastry.
    Inception is awesome. I'm going to see it again tomorrow.
    Have a great weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  3. These look delicious. I'm going to give them a try. I typically love Ina's recipes. I'm going to add the ricotta to the filling to see if it remains creamy. I found you on FoodGazing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rick: I really liked Inception. I got in for free but I would definitely pay for my ticket for it next time. haha.

    Michael: Thanks! Inception was soooo good!

    Diane: Thank you! Definitely try the ricotta. I just didn't want to buy a tub of ricotta for 2 tbsp of it. Let me know how it goes! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yum, this looks fantastic! I love danish of all sorts, but especially homemade danish...so delish! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Looks delicious :) I don't think I've heard a bad thing about Inception yet. Definitely need to add seeing it to my to-do list. As well as making a danish :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love Ina and I love these danishes and I loved Inception.. how good was it?! I hope you've read all the theories online because it will blow your mind even more! ha

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sara: It definitely tastes so much fresher than the store bought ones :)

    Baking.Serendipity: Thanks! You have to see Inception!! I really liked it!

    Evan@ Sweets: I thought it was really good! haha. I actually haven't read any of the theories. By the end of it, I kind of made up my mind whether it was real or not. I guess I need to read those theories! lol

    ReplyDelete
  9. Give me a danish over a donut any day. These look wonderful!

    p.s. thanks for stopping by my blog!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment! :)

-Aaron John

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails