My best recipes often happen when I play around with what I have laying around the kitchen.
Last week, one of these magical recipes happened. For that reason, I don’t have a ton of pictures as I really didn’t have high expectations but the result was so good, I had to share.
It all started when I saw somewhere (let’s assume Instagram) that it was National Sprinkle Day. I was determined to make something with sprinkles. As the day grew older, I was starting to run out of time and I wasn’t so sure about making a full cake for myself (since my husband can’t eat pretty much any of the ingredients in a cake).
Quickly enough, I forgot all about the sprinkles and was simply looking for an easy baking project. Three things I found became the base of my creation: frozen puff pastry, ripe pears and leftover cream cheese. Originally, I planned on turning them into little turnovers but halfway down the road, I got lazy and thought, what about a tart-like pastry? And by that I meant, what should I do if I don’t want to bother making this pretty and I just want to use as much cream cheese filling as possible?
East Pear & Cream Cheese Pastries
This recipe can easily be modified. You can make more & smaller pastries by simply cutting more squares/rectangles into each puff pastry sheets. You can also use different fruits (apples, berries, etc.)
Ingredients
- 1 puff pastry sheet
- 1 cup of cream cheese
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 0.5 cup of powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon of almond extract (vanilla would work too)
- 2 ripe pears (you could also use any other fruits you have around)
- Optional: Cinnamon sugar
Directions
- In a medium bowl, put the cream cheese and butter. Microwave in 30-second increments (it took just under 1 minute for me), until the cream cheese and butter are soft enough to mix with a whisk.
- Add the powdered sugar, the cinnamon and the almond extract. Whisk until the mixture reaches a smooth consistency.
- Cut the puff pastry sheet into 4 rectangles (one cut in the middle vertically, one cut in the middle horizontally). Place the rectangles on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Fold in each side of each rectangle to create a little « crust ».
- Spread the cream cheese evenly on each puff pastry rectangles. Add the cut fruit on top. If using it, sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on top of each pastry.
- Bake the pastries at 400F for 20 minutes.
- Optional: If you have any extra cream cheese filling, you can use it to decorate your cooled pastries, “toaster strudel” style.
As you can see on the picture above, I was not going for perfection here. None of the rectangles are the same. I didn’t put an egg wash on the crust. But trust me when I say it was all so delicious, I quickly forgot how they looked like!
Oh and remember this all started because of National Sprinkle Day, right? Well, I made one special pastry, with completely unnecessary sprinkles. I’ve never been so grateful for sprinkles!
The Hungry Quebbie 