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.
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted slightly from America’s Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook
The Joy of Cooking, its like the bible of cooking.
The cookbook that is my favorite is one from my mom with a bunch of family recipes. Life is Good 🙂
An older version of the Betty Crocker cookbook.
My most used cookbooks are Betty Crocker and the I Hate to Cook Cookbook.
My favorite is a Paula Deen cookbook my mother gave me to cook with my kids. Thanks for the awesome giveaway 🙂
Renee
fattybumpkins at yahoo dot com
I have a tried and true recipe book filled with my favorite family recipes. It’s a photo album with recipes hand written on 4 X 6 index cards and divided into sections with tabs. The album is starting to fall apart at the binding because of how frequently I use it.
I rely a lot on your blog for recipes. Probably more than any of my cookbooks…though if you love this book, I’m sure I would, too.
Hi Mel……if I were to be completely honest I have to say that even though I have many cookbooks I no longer even look at them. I 100 percent use your website now. For the very first time every recipe I make turns out. I do print your recipes and put them in a black binder, so I can refer back to them. Does that count?…
Pioneer Women’s cookbook is my current favorite. But I love my whole cookbook collection!
I love going through my old copy of The Thrifty Cook. It has allot of recipes my mom would cook for us kids.
I love my Baking: From My Home to Yours but I’m really excited for Smitten Kitchen’s book coming out soon
I love Ina Garten’s Family Style cookbook. Such stellar stellar recipes.
I have a cookbook that I’ve made that is my go to. It includes all tried & true recipes the family loves from all the other cookbooks I’ve had in one place so that I don’t have to remember what book I got each one from. But if I had to pick a real cookbook, I’d say Betty Crocker.
I love America’s Test Kitchen and have many of their books. They are my favorites. You need a cookbook and then I would have to say yours. I love your site and have it bookmarked. I usually check your site first online.
=)
I use my own cookbook, one that I have gathered all my favorites in and use all the time.
More With Less. Great book on using everything, I mean everything, in your pantry and refrigerator.
Love Joy of Cooking as a reference book
I love, love America’s Test Kitchen The Best Recipes. Well, I love ALL of the ATK cookbooks, but this one especially. I’d love to add another tome to my shelf!
My most used cook book is The Essential Food Storage Cookbook.
I don’t have a lot of cookbooks. I have never found one that I LOVED. However, the cookbook I have used the most out of my three is my Schwarzbein Principle cookbook. I would love a tried and true book for my collection!!
The cookbook I got for my wedding that I still use is the red and white checkered Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It has some great long time family favorites but I would LOVE a copy of this one you are giving away!! thanks!
I have several cookbooks from Cooking Light that I use all the time. Lots of great recipes! I also have some from Holly Clegg that are wonderful too!
Our family cookbooks are the ones I use most, but I would really like to get my hands on the More with Less cookbook (and this one, of course;).
My Better Homes and Garden cookbook, although I am seriously jealous of my Mothers old one.. it has canning information in it 🙂
Hi Mel,
Thanks for a chance to win! My favorite cookbook at the moment is the Ball Blue Book–can you tell I’m in the middle of a bunch of canning! Most of the year, though, the one I use the most is probably the Betty Crocker New Cookbook (which I got when we got married.) For any basic recipe, you can pretty much find it in there, with good instructions and helpful tips.
Linnae
My favorite is a 18 year old, tattered, falling apart cookbook that our church congregation put together. I have to keep it in a ziploc bag because the plastic binding cracked and crumbled.
Better Homes and Gardens is the one I’ve used the most to learn the basics in my journey to becoming a better cook. You know, that red & white checkered one that everyone seems to have a version of, because its been around forever.
A family cookbook is my favorite…It’s a compilation of recipes from some of the best cooks I know. LOVE IT!
I probably use ‘Vegetarian Classics’ by Jeanne Lemlin the most. And we’re not even completely vegetarian.
The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Love her food!!!
I think my Betty Crocker cookbook.
For the past year the go to cookbook has been My Bread by Jim Lahey. I have loved the no knead bread baking. But I have to say that I LOVE Cooks Country when in comes in my mailbox:) Enjoy your day!
I swear by the cookbook that taught me how to cook- Food Network’s “How to Boil Water.” Nothing in that book has ever turned out bad! Their banana bread recipe is my go-to quick bread!
I use a cookbook put together by my mom, various envelopes with recipes jotted down, phone calls to my mom in law, and shameful plug though it is your blog. 🙂
Better Homes and Gardens
this is a tough one. Probably my most go-to one is MAGIC, by the Junior League of Birmingham (alabama).
Mel I don’t even own a cookbook because you taught me to cook through this blog, and so your blog has been my cookbook for the last four years
I love ATK!
I bounce around between cookbooks but right now my favorite is the Ball Blue Book. It helps me with my beginner canning adventures. I love Learning about all the things I can do with the food from my garden.
My family cookbook.
These cheese danishes must be consumed by me immediately. I am pregnant and I salivate over your recipes every day. We had the Coconut Curry Shrimp (made with chicken) for dinner tonight. Okay, I digress. One of my fav cookbooks is a homemade cookbook given to me by my mother when I got married. it is full of photocopied and stained recipes that have been cooked time and time again and I go to it every week for meal inspiration 🙂 I would LOVE to have America’s Test Kitchen cookbook. There recipes are tried and true! Thanks for doing the giveaway.
My most used cookbook is The New Basics Cookbook by Rosso & Lukins. Love it.
I have a few of the America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks… they are wonderful. I like that they explain why their way is better. I do find that usually the recipes are pretty complex so it would be nice to get one with quick meals!
Please oh please let it be me!!! With just having my 5th child I need quick (but yummy) recipes more then ever!
I don’t use cookbooks often anymore since there are so many great sites like yours to get recipes from. But we got a Pillsbury cookbook as a wedding gift and i have used the heck out of it. Especially in those early married days.
I use an old copy of my mom’s Betty Crocker “Cooky Book”. The cover is worn out but I still love it!!!!
My favorite is a recipe book my mother put together many years ago for our neighborhood church. She filled it with many recipes from our childhood that we loved.
The cookbook with my Mom’s, Grandma’s and Great-Grandma’s recipes.
The Best Recipe (America’s test kitchen) is a good go to book to get started….
My all time favorite recipe book is the Barefoot Contessa Family Style. Love that cookbook!