Easy Cheese Danish

On a whim I decided to roll through the 150+ recipes I have bookmarked and came across one where I magically had all the ingredients for.

That usually doesn't happen by the way. I'm almost always short an egg which I never realize until I'm adding them into the already wet batter, while my kids are down for nap.

Irregardless, after a quick run though the SHORT ingredient list- I had it all! I'm thrilled that I did. These babies had been on my radar for a while, and for some reason I always thought that I couldn't cut it. I mean - danish- sounds so fancy. I don't know if I can do fancy.

While they didn't turn as fancy as I'd have liked (I think next time I make them- and I'll make them again- my poor waistline) I'll fold them differently. All four corners together. I loved how the cheese filling oozed, and the puff pastry was so flaky. I wish I'd made them yesterday afternoon so my Husband could have taken them to work with him. I see them sitting on the counter over there. I already had one for breakfast.

I'll be venturing on to making them with different fillings...while I don't care for fruit ones, my Husband does, so I see an apple in the future (hello Fall!) and a pecan filled one. Anywho- if you find puff pastry on sale pick up a few extra boxes to store in the freezer and whip these babies up for super simple, showstopping occasions.

Easy Cheese Danish printable
(adapted from Ina Garten)

Ingredients:
* 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
* 2 table­spoons ricotta cheese
* 1 tea­spoon pure vanilla extract
* 1/8 tea­spoon salt
* zest of one small lemon
* 2 sheets (1 box) frozen puff pas­try, defrosted
* 1 egg beaten with 1 table­spoon water, for egg wash

Direc­tions:
Pre­heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parch­ment paper.

Place the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of your mixer fit­ted with a pad­dle attach­ment and cream them together on low speed until smooth. With the mixer still on low, add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest and mix until just com­bined. Don’t whip!

Unfold 1 sheet of puff pas­try onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the sheet into quar­ters with a pizza cutter. Place a heap­ing table­spoon of cheese fill­ing into the mid­dle of each of the 4 squares. Brush the bor­der of each pas­try with egg wash and fold 2 oppo­site cor­ners to the cen­ter, brush­ing and over­lap­ping the cor­ners of each pas­try so they firmly stick together. Brush the top of the pas­tries with egg wash. Place the pas­tries on the pre­pared sheet pan. Repeat with the sec­ond sheet of puff pas­try and refrig­er­ate the filled Dan­ish for 15 minutes.

Bake the pas­tries for about 20 min­utes, rotat­ing the pan once dur­ing bak­ing, until puffed and brown. Best served warm.

These ARE super easy and the taste hits the spot!