| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 45 min |
| Prep: | 10 min |
| Inactive: | 15 min |
| Cook: | 20 min |
| Yield: | 8 Danish |
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons ricotta cheese
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
- 2 sheets (1 box) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
- 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Place the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric 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 board and roll it slightly with a floured rolling pin until it’s a 10 by 10-inch square. Cut the sheet into quarters with a sharp knife. 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. Serve warm.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 8 servings |
| Calories | 324 |
| Total Fat | 23 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Carbohydrates | 24 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Sugar | 10 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Cholesterol | 85 mg |
| Sodium | 184 mg |
Reviews
Excellent and easy!
This was so good and easy! Used cottage cheese instead of ricotta and made filling 2 days ahead. Thawed and rolled pastry on the morning, though Ina says you can refrigerate filled pastry overnight. Also, was out of eggs, so did egg wash with leftover egg white and half & half — worked great!
Easy, awesome and working with the frozen puff pastry is not as intimidating as usual….
I’m not a baker, but after seeing the fabulous Ina make these on her show, I knew I had to give them a try. As so many others have stated, these are fantastic. I don’t have much of a “sweet tooth” either, so I used 3 Tbsp. sugar, and since I used a pretty big lemon, the zest from it reached about 1 Tbsp. After being in France and enjoying a few of their pastries, these turned out like some of those. And I always heard that less sugar is used then here in the U.S. So thank you, dear Ina, for creating such a lovely dish to enjoy at the beginning or ending of any day!
Enjoyed this recipe, next time will divide into 6 danishes per sheet.
These delicious delights could not be easier to make ! Thank you Ina
Turned out really good the first time, just make sure you read the recipe right I had to start over bc I added the egg whites
I’ve made this recipe several times! So easy and delicious. I cut my pastry into 6 pieces instead of 4, and bake it at 385 for 18 minutes. Perfect every time!
First, I LOVE Ina Garten so much. I trust her take on a recipe absolutely.
Total deliciousness for breakfast or a dessert.
This recipe is great and easy (keep pastry dough cold even when defrosting) BUT too cold and it will break when folding over, so keep that in mind.
I had to make this on the fly. Luckily I had whipped cream cheese so didn’t have to wait too long to warm in temperature. The lemon zest and vanilla make it so good. The egg makes it puff a little like a souffle. (never made souffle). Dont skip the egg wash, it makes the crust golden and crispy.
I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top.
PS, try Ina’s meatloaf recipe.
I didn’t have time to deal with the step of the puff pastry sheets, but I did have ready-to-bake puff pastry cups; so cut my work in half while testing out the taste of these pastries. I made the filling with 8 oz mascarpone bc I didn’t have cream cheese, kind of the same thing. It didn’t suffer in the exchange. After filling the cups, I added a little dollop of pie filling to the top of the filling, gilding the lily. I think the idea of little Danish cups vs. a large pastry are great for entertaining bc it’s smaller, goes further and is finger food. Just sayin’.