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
My favorite cookbook is one that a friend put together with some of her favorite recipes and gave to me as a wedding gift. I have loved everything I have made.
Those look delicious! My favorite cookbook is the Our Best Bites cookbook. Like your recipes, they are mom friendly and family friendly, and I haven’t found one I didn’t like.
My favorite cookbook is definitely a local cookbook put out by a seed corn company nearby….nothing like tried and true country cooking!
My most used and loved cookbook is actually one I got from a compilation of the elementary kids who brought in their favorite recipes for a school cookbook fundraiser. We use it for a lot of different dishes – especially the banana bread on cold winter days when we have way too many bananas in the freezer.
As a student, I love ATK and wish I could afford all of its products!
If I am not looking at your blog we use the red and whit BHG Cookbook.
My most used cookbook is ATK Family Cookbook, but I must admit that I mostly just print off your recipes!
I seem to always use “Joy of Cooking” mainly for information as opposed to recipes. Like many people I have created my own recipe book.
I check out all sorts of cookbooks from the library when I want to look at a book, but I usually just peruse the internet for recipes.
My favorite is an old family one. I use it all the time and all love it!!!
Have not used cookbooks in a while as everything I need is found on the Internet. I have a list of favorite blogs that are my favorite, yours included. This is how I found what I am making tonight – Broiled Parmesan and Lemon Chicken 😀
Does pinterest count as a cookbook? Seriously I have shelves of cookbooks but for the past year or so I’ve been using nothing but the internet to find new recipes. I love their show though so I would love to win their cookbook.
To be perfectly honest, your website is my go to “cookbook”! When it is time to plan out my weekly meals, I sit down and browse here! 🙂 Love your stuff!
Gourmet Cookbook.
Thanks great giveaway!
My favorite cookbook is the neighborhood one called Ensign Favorites. We are so short on time in this house we require a cookbook that has recipes which only take 45 minutes or less to put together. I’d love the ATK book.
I don’t have a favorite cookbook anymore since I pin everything on pinterest now! If I had to pick, then Cook’s Illustrated Slow Cooker Revolution.
My favorite cookbook is Always in Season: Junior League of Salt Lake City.
The danish looks fantastic – of course it must be from America’s Test Kitchen. My #1 place to look for recipes is Cook’s Country, then your blog (I’ve even pinned a few of your recipes), then an old Betty Crocker cookbook. Thanks for all the awesome recipes!
The classis red and white checkered Better Homes and Garden cookbook that I have had for 13 years. The binder is broken but it’s still my “go-to” for the basics.
I have a cookbook that I put together for the local Alzheimer’s Association. It is filled with recipes that have been handed down for generations, I Just Love It!
The recipe book that I use the most is one that is made up of all our family recipes. It would be nice to get a new cook book to add to the favorites!
I love love love cookbooks, but I am lacking in shelf space and had to get rid of most of my cook books…so, I don’t really have a favorite… I have your blog instead 🙂 Hope that counts! I would love more ATK stuff though…seems like their books would be worth having around!
Well my own recipe binder is what I use everyday. If I had to chose a cookbook it would probably be pampered chef, 29 minutes to dinner.
Fully one quarter of the recipes I make for my family are either from ATK Family Cookbook or ATK Healthy Family Cookbook. I especially use ATK stir fry recipes. They are ALWAYS great! BTW, your blueberry cheesecake pie was the easiest pie I’ve ever made in my life. Delicious, too!
i’d have to say ‘the internet’ as a whole. whenever i need a recipe i turn to my computer first!
i still use my tried and true betty crocker, although I feel like as my cooking improves, I tend to use it less and less.
My most used cookbook is a homemade one that I compiled of all my mom and grandma’s tried and true recipes.
I don’t use a cookbook much — just my tried and true collection of written recipes. I would love to have this book though!
honestly, i stick to recipes i find online and recipes from family and friends. i use my betty crocker cookbook as a reference, so i suppose that is the one i use most? i just haven’t found one that we have loved! this one looks awesome though. i love that show!
My Mrs. Fields Cookie Book…by far…
My most used cookbook from my collection is my BHG New Cookbook. I got it for my 18th birthday so it is one that I’ve had forever which is why it is the most used ;). After that it is probably How to Cook Everything and then half of all the cookbooks I own…
My very favorite cookbook is the one I am compiling from the many food blogs I follow as well as from my hard copy cookbooks… BUT- my current favorite hard copy cookbook is the one my local church group put together. I feel like Cookbooks from church groups are the best ones. Always filled with tried and true recipes. I love going to Goodwill and Deseret Industries in search of church cookbooks.
I find myself using mainly recipes from blogs like yours, but the cookbook I probably use most often is Better Homes and Gardens.
I love cookbooks! I think the one I use most often is my taste of home. Love it
I compiled several hundred family recipes into a cookbook that I self-published and that is actually my go-to cookbook. But, I do have several others I reference and I would LOVE to win this one. Thank you
I’m strange, but I like read cookbooks like novels. My current favorite is called Our Best Bites. It is a great family friendly, busy mom, easy on the budget cookbook. Thanks for the chance to win. I enjoy reading your post.
Lately its mostly been the internet, but I do have one that my aunt gave me for Christmas many years ago. It’s a cookbook that all her co workers (that work at a production plant making airbags) had rounded up their favorite recipes and made them into a cookbook. I really love it and you can tell it’s been used with all the food stains and crinkled up pages LOL!
Jane Brody’s first cookbook – I think it’s called “Good Food” – I used that often and recently had to replace it as it was falling apart.
My good old red & white checked Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook. It has all my favorites from my childhood and I can secretly look up how to properly hard-boil eggs or bake potatoes without anyone having to know how pathetic of a cook I am 🙂
Hi Mel! My go-to cookbook is The Cook’s Illustrated C00kbook. Really, how can you go wrong with it?
I love my Our Best Bites cookbook but I’m already in love with this one too! I love America’s Test Kitchen & all the better that it’s quick recipes!
My favorite cookbook is the one my mom made for her kids. It includes all the recipes that she made for us when we were growing up. Recipes = family history!
It’s good old Better Homes and Gardens for me!
My favorite cooksbooks have always been from community or church groups.
I don’t really use a cookbook that often. I have seven sisters and we frequently share recipes with one another.
My latest love in cookbooks is “deliciously organic” by Carrie Vitt and my long time love came from my dad when I was 16, it is an encyclopedia of American cooking.
It is my mother in laws ward cookbook she gave me when I was married- the Hilladay 25th ward cookbook!
Hey Mel,
I love your blog and have not tried a recipe that didn’t turn out great. The refrigerator bran muffin mix is in my fridge right now! My most used cookbook would probably be the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Lots of good basic go to recipes, huge variety and includes lots of pictures too, just a good basic cookbook any person should own! I have perused the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook at Barnes and Noble, I haven’t seen the quick version, love that as a busy mom of 3 little ones, I will definitely be checking this out! Thanks!
I love my Taste of Home and Cuisine books. When they come in the mail, I feel like it is Christmas!!
Aside from the interwebs these days, it would have to be one our last neighborhood put together years ago. It has some delicious recipes in it!