Start your fall baking with these fresh fruit danishes! Smaller peaches, pears, plums, and apples from your local farmers’ market or CSA boxes would be ideal for this recipe. All you need is pre-made puff pastry, 1 egg, cream cheese for the filling, a sweetener like honey or brown sugar, and some spices for these treats.
Makes six pastries.
Ingredients
- Seasonal fruit (apples, plums, pears, peaches, etc.), thinly sliced (We used one medium apple and six small plums)
Pastry
- 1 sheet of pre-made puff pastry
- 1 egg (for egg wash)
Filling
- 7-8 oz of cream cheese
- splash of milk (or coffee creamer)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp honey or brown sugar (add more to taste)
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon (pumpkin or apple pie spice blend works too)
- Thaw your puff pastry according to the box’s instructions.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Let your cream cheese come to room temperature. Add splash of milk, vanilla, sweetener, and spices. Mix until combined with a hand mixer.
- Slice fruit into about 1/8-inch pieces. Tip: For more sour fruit like plums, stir sliced fruit with a little bit of brown sugar or honey. For apples and pears that tend to brown after being cut, mix them with a tiny bit of lemon juice. Â
- Once your pastry is thawed, gently roll out any lines your pastry and cut it into six even rectangles. Score (lightly press the dough with a knife, but don’t cut all the way trough) a smaller rectangle on each pastry.
- Fill each small rectangle with filling and layer the fruit on tip of the filling.
- Â Crack a whole egg into a small bowl, whisk the white and yolk together, and use a pastry brush to spread the egg on the outside rectangle. This will make your pastry golden brown.
- Place your baking sheet in the hot oven and bake for 12 minutes. Add a minute or two if your pastry is not quite golden brown and raised.
- Serve warm or cooled to room temperature. Keep any leftover pastries in a sealed container and eat within a few days.
 Recipe and photos by Alison Penn.Â
Locally sourced ingredients from Desert Spoon Food Hub
- Gala apples
- Italian plums