Making Puff Pastry Pinwheels

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​Impress your guests with this easy yet sophisticated puff pastry recipe.

Cream Cheese Danish Pinwheels

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I love baking with puff pastry! It's easy, it's impressive, and the options are endless. Whether you make your own (quite a labor of love) or purchase store bought frozen pastry dough, the outcome is always the same....DELISH!!! And I'll provide a few tips for making them even better.

Ingredients

• Frozen Puff Pastry Sheets (1-2 sheets)
• Cream Cheese (about 6oz), brought to room temp
• 1 T sugar
• 1 Lemon or 1 T lemon juice
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• Berries (whichever you like, I use strawberries, blackberries, blueberries or apricots)
• 1 egg for egg wash
• Apricot preserves 

Instructions

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

1.  Take your frozen pastry dough out of package and allow it to thaw for about 15 minutes. Cold pastry is always best, but it needs to be pliable enough to work with. 
2. Set oven to 400*
3. While dough is thawing, mix your room temp cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla and sugar in a small bowl until smooth. Taste and add to it if needed. 
4. After your puff is somewhat pliable, I like to roll it out a bit (just a tiny bit) to make the sheets about a 1/2 inch bigger on all sides See picture (A)
5. Now I cut my puff pastry dough to my desired shapes. For pinwheels, cut pastry into squares.   See picture (B). 
6. Time to shape our dough! For Pinwheels,  take the square cut pieces. Cut a diagonal slit in each corner that comes almost all the way to the middle.  See picture (C).
7. Egg wash as shown. Fold one corner of each section over to the middle (D).
8. Put a dollop of cream cheese in center. Top with fruit of choice.  Try blackberries, blueberries, strawberries or apricots.  Volia!  (E)
9. Now that they are shaped, I like to put them in the freezer to chill 5-10 minutes. Get the fat cold again so it doesn't melt when baked. This provides the beautiful layers of the puff. 
10. Chilled? Ok, now egg wash all exposed dough (F) and toss in the oven for about 12-15 minutes. Check on them. They should be a nice golden brown.
11. Topping? You can either use a light dusting of powdered sugar, or my fave, heat up 4T of apricot preserve with 1 Tablespoon of water on the stove stop. Brush this glaze over the warm pastry to give it a beautiful sheen (G). 





























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12. Once you've mastered the pinwheel shape, you can branch out and try other designs!