Simple Cheese Danish
These simple homemade cheese danishes are so easy, so elegant and so delicious. You’ve gotta try them right now!
I feel like I’ve been harping on quick, simple recipes and meals lately. Sorry if that offends your gourmet spirit.
I promise that fast food (I’m talking fast food like homecooked fast food, not fast food like dollar menu fast food) can taste delicious even if it is simple and quick to prepare.
Because of my latest fetish with easy recipes, I was thrilled beyond thrilled when out of the blue, America’s Test Kitchen sent me their newest cookbook, The Quick Family Cookbook, because the food in here is seriously talking my language.
No-fail is the word that comes to mind with ATK’s tested, tested, tested recipes and the wonder of this cookbook is that you get classically delicious America’s Test Kitchen recipes with minimal fuss, time and ingredients. Oh, I am in love with this book.
To show how great this book is, I should have made some stellar main course fare that will save your bacon on any given Tuesday night; however, I couldn’t resist these delicious cheese Danish pastries.
They are so easy, so elegant and so delicious, if you close your eyes while eating one, you might just believe you are smack dab on the bustling streets of Paris – oh wait, think of some city in Denmark! – eating an authentic pastry.
Not that I ever have had that experience, but take my word for it – these babies get the job done for a no-fuss pastry. Make them and love them.
Simple Cheese Danish
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese, light or regular, softened to room temperature
- 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoons grated lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed (9 1/2 by 9-inch)
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten with 2 tablespoons water
Instructions
- Adjust an oven rack to upper-middle position and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, stir together the cream cheese, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla. Set aside.
- Roll the pastry into a 12 by 9-inch rectangle on a lightly floured counter, making sure it doesn’t stick to the counter while rolling. Cut the rectangle into six 4 1/2 by 4-inch rectangles (cut it in half the long way and then cut each strip into thirds). Transfer the pastry rectangles to the baking sheet, spacing about 1 inch apart. Using the tip of a paring knife, score a 1/2-inch border around the edge of each pastry, then brush the borders with the egg wash (no fear – if you don’t have a pastry brush, using your fingers works just as well!). Prick the pastry with a fork every 1 inch or so within the border (see the picture below for a visual). Place a generous 2-3 tablespoons of filling in the center of each pastry and spread it into an even layer leaving the border uncovered.
- Bake the pastries until fully puffed and golden about 12-14 minutes (watching carefully so they don’t overbrown). Serve the pastries warm or at room temperature.
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Recipe Source: adapted slightly from America’s Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook
The cookbook I use most is the family cookbook my daughter compiled and put together for a project for our family. All the favorite recipes of my mom and four older sisters are in there, plus some of our nieces who are married. It’s worth its weight in gold! And, the fact my daughter made it makes it more of a treasure to me.
Love ATK – excellent recipes every time!
I love having Joy of Cooking around- it has recipes for everything imaginable. Just a good, well-rounded cookbook.
My favorite cookbook right now is The Pioneer Woman’s Cookbook!!
My favorite cookbook is Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Pie and Pastry Bible. I love every recipe in that thing (including her danishes. How fun to try a different recipe).
Hi Mel! I think I need to make these danishes tomorrow while the kiddos are at school. Yum!! My well loved cookbook is a Betty Croker cookbook that was my grandmother’s. I love it!
I LOVE American Test Kitchen, I have their “Baking” cookbook and love it. I also have a bunch of tried and true recipes I keep in a binder that I’ve printed off from online and from my Mom. Thanks for your awesome blog! I check it all the time. 🙂
I like “Deceptively Delicious”. I’m always trying to sneak more veggies into my kids food.
I use the Taste of HOme cookbooks a lot.
I use our own family cookbook the most. I use it several times a week. BTW you were in my two daughters, Melissa and Tiffany’s ward in Green Bay!
Elizabeth
The Our Best Bites and The Pioneer Woman’s cookbooks are my favorites.
I love my Southern Living cookbook! And the Gooseberry Patch cookbooks always have good “down home” recipes.
This looks wonderful! My favorite cook book is the first one I got when I was married. My sweet Mom gave it to me I’ve used it bunches.
My favorites are the Taste of Home yearly compilations. I can look through those endlessly!
Those danishes look amazing, and even better EASY! My favorite cookbook is a compilation of recipes from websites and blogs mixed in with old family favorites and ones that I have accumulated from friends. The best recipes, I think, come from people who love to cook!
Hmmm…most used cookbook. That’s a good question! Now, with Pinterest, I find myself hardly ever looking at a cookbook. But if I were to pick, it would honestly be a three-way tie: The Pioneer Woman’s cookbooks (does that make this a four-way tie?), the Magnolia Bakery cookbook (always get asked for the recipes!), and my church’s cookbook-gotta love those tried and true church lady recipes!
Betty crocker
My mom’s ancient Betty Crocker cookbook is pretty well used in my kitchen for tried and true recipes, but I also use allrecipes.com quite a bit to try new things. And of course I find awesome recipes here too! Thanks Mel!
How to Cook Without A Book. Great techniques, then you can make just about anything off a “parent” recipe.
My newest cookbook, The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner, has been my favorite lately… my Dad let me “look at it” and it has yet to be returned! However, I am sure the cookbook your giving away would take its place quite nicely. =o)
Thanks!!
I love your site, wish you had a book published! As far as books go . . . The one I use the most is a compilation of recipes from my grandma, aunts, and some dear family friends. They gave it to me when I moved away to college. I have used it numerous times a week now for over a decade.
I love the Our Best Bites cookbook
I love anything by Giada!
Anything from King Arthur Flour is my favorite cookbook
I love cookbooks and have quite a few, but I have to say that I love the Taste of Home Magazine the best (though not really a cookbook)! I have made by own by cutting out the good recipes and putting them in my own binder… that is probably my favorite cookbook.
I use the simple and humble Joy of Cooking for basics like pancakes and buttermilk biscuits. Otherwise I just use the internet!
I have used a cookbook titled “Country Kitchen” for 27 years. Someone gave it to me as a wedding gift and it has the best homemade bread recipe I’ve every found!!
I don’t have many cookbooks but I usually pull out a family cookbook when I need one.
The Better Homes and Gardens red-checked book and ward cookbooks. I’ve heard that the ATK books are awesome.
My favorite cookbook is the Cooks Illustrated Cooking for Two series. It’s great since I generally cook for just me and my husband.
The Cookbook that I use most is Alton Browns Good Eats Volume 1. It is full of basic recipes that are broken down so they are easier to understand. He also includes tid bits in each recipe about how to manipulate them for individuals tastes.
I absolutely must try these! I love all the fast homemade cooking, as I love to cook home made meals, but do not always have the time during the week for hours of prep, etc. LOVE LOVE LOVE your site!
I really don’t use cookbooks thanks to awesome blogs like yours, but every once in a while when I’m making something basic I go to my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I don’t have any America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks, but ever since hearing about them during the last year I REALLY want one! Let this be the one time I win a giveaway!
Of course, I mostly get recipes from the internet now. But the cookbooks I go to most often are old church cookbooks. They have the most “normal” kind of recipes that my family enjoys.
My favorite cookbook is the basic Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I love using new recipes!!!
Lately I’ve used the Pioneer Woman cookbook the most, but love my old Charleston Junior League Receipts.
I collect cookbooks and I’m not sure I can pick a favorite? I really like my Taste of Home Annual cookbooks, I have a couple of Gooseberry Patch cookbooks that I really enjoy, I have a Better Homes & Gardens and several different “church” or “community” cookbooks that have wonderful recipes that have been passed down for many generations. I can’t choose just one!
Moosewood Cookbook and Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Molly Katzen. I love ATK!
One of the many I go to is the Oklahoma Extension Homemakers Golden Anniversary cookbook, dated 1935 to 1985. I have had it for years!
Mine is actually The Brown Family cookbook. It is my families cookbook and we are going to do a second edition this next year and i am so excited for it!!
I have a bunch of printed out recipes in a binder (which is now falling apart) from websites… I also have a ton of recipes saved on my phone- I actually cook with it more than anything! I would love the ATK cookbook- with 6 kids (youngest is 8 smoochy months!), fast and easy sounds wonderful!
As boring as it may sound, I love my Simply Colorado cookbook. It’s full of delicious, healthy recipes (rosemary lemon chicken is our fav!).
The cookbook I turn to over and over again? Ruth Reichl’s Gourmet Magazine cookbook. I love it because it has delicious and easy recipes for basics like buttermilk waffles and perfectly creamy cheesecake as well as more advanced recipes and a great variety of ethnic recipes as well. My other go to book? My ATK family cookbook! I love it for many of the same reasons.
The cookbook I have grown to love is “The Ultra Gel Answer Book”. I discovered the merits of Ultra Gel several years ago when making freezer jam and this book was a freebie with my purchase. I have been suprised how much I refer to it. My favorite is how well it keeps whipped cream from separating. Hope you’re in your new home soon. You’re a trooper for doing the hotel thing with 5 kids 🙂
I’m always using my ATK family cookbook!
Right now my favorite is the Our Best Bites one. I don’t use my cookbooks often, preferring the Internet or taste of home magazine but I do use that one several times a month.
Wow! This sounds like a great cook book! I have found a lot of great recipes in my “Fix It and Forget It” slow cooker cook book, by Ranck and Good. I have loved having real, time-saving recipes that I can throw together and get fantastic results with. Thanks for letting me enter!
My two most-used “cookbooks” are grey binders. One is my own collection of recipes I have found (mostly online). The other is a family recipe collection with lots of old favorites. Your website is a close third!
My favorite cookbook is the Wallowa County Cowbells Cookbook. It is fun. And since I don’t live there any longer it is fun to make an old friends recipe.
I love America’s Test Kitchen cook books.