Dan-ish

Easy Bake!

This pastry is as ad-hoc as can be. Ugly little buggers, I really didn’t even know what to call it. It’s not really a tart, not a croissant, it’s kind of like a danish…get it dan-ish?  I literally walked into the kitchen grabbed the three ingredients and went for it. Cheese, jam and puff pastry; three ingredients one would expect to be a winning combination.

In high school there were five options we had to choose from at break time; bun and cheese, tea biscuit and cheese, doughnut and cheese, danish and cheese or a beef patty (cheese was definitely winning in the 90’s). The danish was not always a staple; only on rare occasions would they serve the sweet little pastries in the white plastic bag with a slice of tastee cheese on the side. What’s interesting is that I hated danish and cheese; I was the chick with a beef patty every break time. 

For those of you not familiar with break time, it is a 30 to 45 minute snack break Jamaican students receive around 10:15 and 10:45 am, it varies by school. Since absolutely no eating is allowed in classes, I guess the lovely folks at the ministry of education assume that if kids have to be at school by 7:45 am they must have had breakfast by at least 6am or there about, and to sit and wait until 12pm or even later to have lunch is pure torture.  Hence break time.

So it was in high school that I was introduced to the danish, some filled with a cheese like substance and some filled with jam. My simple and easy recipe uses both, however the cheese in my pastry taste like cheese and not just a creamy yellow substance. I went out on a limb and used some smoked gouda. I knew the salty smokiness would be yummy with jam. The last recipe I made took 30 minutes, this one took less.  If you are a danish and cheese fan, you will really like this. Even I like it, I can’t have more than one at a time, but I do find it delicious. Flaky, sweet, salty and Smokey; perfection!

 

Makes 6

Ingredients (printable recipe)

1 Puff pastry sheet

6 tablespoon shredded smoked gouda

6 teaspoon guava jam (or your own flavor)

2 table spoon butter

2 tablespoon brown sugar

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
• Roll out the puff pastry sheet and cut it into 6 squares
• Place one tablespoon of gouda in each square
• Fold the four corners to meet the center and crimp the edges creating a pocket
• Brush the pastry with butter and sprinkle the sugar on top
• Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, the cheese will melt the puff pastry will puff up
• Remove from the oven and while still hot spoon in a teaspoon of  jam into the center
• Allow it to cool slightly before eating

Greedy tips:

• Just so you know puff pastry does not behave, it follows no rules, no matter how pretty you make them look while they are uncooked. Once they go in the heat and puff up they will do all sorts of things. Some of your cheese may escape the pockets, but it’s not a big deal. 

Xoxo Greedygirl