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
King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion
A simple neighborhood cookbook is one of my favs. I love having recipes from people I know who are great cooks and the fact that my mom put a bunch of her recipes in it!
My most-used cookbook is Cooking Around the Calendar with Kids by Amy Houts. She is my mom! 🙂 Although I don’t have kids, the recipes are easy, and include some favorites that I grew up with. 🙂
I have 3 America’s Test Kitchen Cookbooks and alternate between the three of them the most!
My own personal cookbooks, which are really just a combination of a thousand people’s different recipes.
Thanks for all the yummy recipes!
Those look delightful! My favorite cookbook is an old paperback version of Better Homes and Gardens (complete with red checkered cover) that I stole from my mom when I moved out. It’s my go to for the basics!
I use lots of different cookbooks. I probably use my old better homes and garden cookbook the most.
I adore my Betty Crocker cookbook but it is so shredded! I can always tell the recipes we like the best because they are slopped on and dog-eared with notes scribbled all over! 🙂
My favorite cookbook is one that my mother bought from a bed and breakfast in Alaska. Sounds different but the ladies there knew how to make up some delicious recipes!
I mostly use your blog and allrecipes.com now but I do love my Southern Living cookbook. 🙂
I love ATK’s Healthy Family Cookbook. And Our Best Bites first cookbook too.
My favorite cookbook right now is Rick Bayless’ Everyday Mexican. So good and authentic! Though I have a special love in my heart for all my Cooks’ Illustrated books.
Well, before I had you, Mel, I looked at the classic Betty Crocker cookbook. Now it’s pretty much all Mel’s kitchen cafe or allrecipes.com.
I have a lot of favorite cook books but the one i always fall back on is one that my aunt put together with all of our family and close friend’s recipes. I just love it!!
I love the Joy of Cooking!
I have a recipe binder that my family put together of secret family recipes! I love it
My Barefoot Contessa cookbook has a lot of wear and tear. Thanks so much for the giveaway and hope you find a wonderful house soon!
Melanie, I think if I had a book with all your recipes compiled in it, it would be my favorite cookbook. But since I don’t have that (yet?) I always go to a book my Mom compiled a few years ago filled with family favorites. Hope I win!
I have waaaaay too many cookbooks! Love your site.
I’m more of a food blog person than a cookbook girl, but I looooooove James Peterson’s Baking. I also am a big fan of any Ina G cookbook (who isn’t??) 🙂
Hi Melanie!
If I’m not too late… I would like to say my favorite cookbook in the past has been the old Taste of Home books. I have found quite a few tried and true recipes that I still use today. 1997 was a good year.
Love my better homes and gardens cookbook. So classic, I pull it out all the time.
I love cookbooks, all of them. One of my most trusted is my Essential Mormon Cookbook. Everything is great in it.
I love my tired and true hand written recipe book that has all of my loved and cherished recipes that I have collected over the years
My favorite cookbook is one the ladies of our church published years ago! It’s falling apart…it has to be held together with a rubberband!
I have several cookbooks that I refer to but more recently I’ve found Pinterest with leads to fabulous recipes. Gotta love today’s technology.
I too love ATK! My favorite/most used cookbook right now is probably the ATK: The Complete TV Show Cookbook that my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday. It such a great resource! Sooo many recipes and helfpul hints! – I would love this quick recipes book! As a working mom who does her best to make a home-cooked meal for my family everynight, quick is sometimes a neccessity!
Does Pinterest count as a cookbook? What about your site or the treasured binder I have collected over the years? Can’t say I have a favorite cookbook….maybe it will be this one?
“Lion House Recipes” is my favorite. It’s been used so much that I’m surprised that the cover is still attached. Great book!!
I have a favorite cookbook from my church that I use often
My favorite recipe book is a SLC local book called Favorites. I would love this Quick test kitchen book, I love watching the test kitchen on TV.
Can I pick melskitchencafe.com as my cookbook? Oh, and my awesome Paprika app to put it all on my iPad. And pinterest for my secondary reference as needed. For inspiration on paper, I like my Xagave cookbook. I am a sucker for good pictures, and sadly my lovely ward cookbooks don’t inspire the same salvating as a recipe that includes pictures.
My Taste of Home Cookbook probably gets the most use, more for cooking times/temps than for recipes. Haven’t needed to crack open a cookbook since finding your site earlier this year. Now I pretty much just come to your site to do my meal planning each week.
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook was really my springboard into cooking. I now have developed my own cookbook from favorites I’ve gathered throughout the years as my love of cooking has grown!
My OBB cookbook, I love it!
My mom put a recipe book together for me when I got married which I love!
My go-to cookbook is the King Arthur Baker’s Companion, which is for baking more than cooking actual meals, which is why I frequent your blog each week when it’s time to plan dinners!
Joy of Cooking. Hands down.
My most favorite cookbooks have been put together by both sides of my family. Every few years we all submit our favorite recipes and they are spiral bound and sent out. Each recipe reminds me of someone different that I love.
Hey Mel… my go to cookbook is probably Joy of Cooking. But, with all the recipes I’ve printed out of yours, it should be “Mel’s Kitchen Cafe” that is my go to for favorite and easy recipes!
I love the Favorites cookbook by the Ivory family.
I am in love with ATK as well. I have subscribed to two of their magazines and saved them in my growing stack. A cookbook would solve that problem. I guess I need to have puff pastry in the freezer since my family loves danish for breakfast and I could make them much cheaper than the store bought ones!
My favorite and most used cookbook is a Southern Living Quick and Easy cookbook my mother bought when I was in high school. LOVE IT!
I love my “Favorites” cookbook. I use it all the time.
The most used cookbook in my house is a collection of recipies from my grandparents church. they used to publush a cookbook every five years. It even has some of my recipes from two of my great grandmothers.
Classic midwest comfort food including bar and hotdishes.
I love Everyday Food magazine!
Mine has to be my old, dilapidated recipe binder. I was so worried it would get lost in our recent move that I almost didn’t let our movers box it up!
My favorites are the ones compiled by women in our congregations or the book I’ve written my recipes in for years. That counts as a cookbook, right? 🙂
Mel,
Exactly one year ago our family had just moved and were living in a hotel with four kids and a dog! Everyday my husband would go off to would to work and we would find somewhere new to go to release some energy (3 of my 4 kids are boys) and return in the afternoon so my youngest could nap. I want to encourage you that although this is difficult you will be blessed and have wonderful memories from your stay at the hotel. Here is a little something I wrote looking back on that time…I hope it will bless as well as encourage you. http://luv2mommy.com/family/life-in-the-motel/
The crock pot was my friend also during our stay. When I read about your situation this is a recipe of mine that came to mind. Blessings to you and your family.
http://luv2mommy.com/recipes/cream-cheese-crockpot-chicken/
My moms RS cookbook from her ward. So many excellent cooks in that bunch!