Gingered Pear Danish

 

This gingered pear Danish was my attempt at a sweet treat with puff pastry! It was delicious. I love pears, especially in winter, and I also love ginger. I’m also a sucker for cream cheese and almond, so of course I had to make an almond cream cheese spread to go with the gingered pear filling!

Ingredients (Makes 4 Danishes)

-          Puff pastry (about 1 sheet frozen)

-           1 bosc pear, peeled and thinly sliced

-          1 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

-          1 Tbsp brown sugar

-          1 tsp fresh ginger, minced (I used a micro-plane)

-          1 tsp pure vanilla extract

-          ½ tsp ground cinnamon

-          ½-1 Tbsp demerara sugar

-          4oz of cream cheese, softened

-          2 Tbsp white sugar

-          ½ tsp almond extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place the puff pastry on a clean, lightly floured surface. Roll out into a square that is approximately 14-16in on all sides (see photo). Alternatively, you can roll out into a rectangle about 5-6in wide and 16in long. Cut the pastry into 4 roughly even squares. I did not trim the edges but you could do so. 

In a bowl, combine the melted butter, brown sugar, ginger, half the vanilla extract (1/2 tsp), cinnamon, and the pear slices. Mix well. Allow to sit for a few minutes.

While the pear mixture sits, mix the softened cream cheese, white sugar, almond extract, and remaining vanilla extract (1/2 tsp) in a bowl. If you can use an electric mixer, that is great!

Spread the cream cheese mixture on each of the four pastry squares you have. The amount is up to you, but I used about 1 Tbsp per pastry square (see photo below). 

Then evenly distribute the pear filling across the four pastries. You don’t want the pears to go right up to the edge, so you likely want about ¼- ½ in between the edges and the pear mixture. You might find you don’t use quite all of the pear mixture.

Sprinkle the pastries with the demerara sugar.

I then folded up the sides (they will unravel a bit in the baking) to help contain some of the juices. However, as you can see from the picture, I still had some runover of pear juices. It didn’t affect the taste!

You can shape these how you want but I chose to fold up the edges a little into a circle-like Danish.

Place in the oven and bake about 16-18 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. 

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Beef & Cheddar Turnover

My goal in adventuring with puff pastry was to make both a savory and a sweet treat. For my savory puff pastry adventure, I decided to make a savory turnover. I settled on a beef and cheddar turnover since we had all the ingredients! It was delicious! Mark's final words were "you gotta make this again."

Recipe (Makes 2 turnovers)

- puff pastry (enough for two 5x5in squares rolled out) [cold]

- 1/4 lb. ground beef (I used 85% lean)

- 1/3 cup onion, diced

- 1 large clove of garlic, minced

- 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

- 1 egg, whisked

- salt, pepper, and smoked paprika to season

Directions:

If you are using store bought puff pastry, you need to defrost it in the fridge. It should be cold but not frozen. 

Roll out your puff pastry until you have approximately a 5x5 or 6x6in square. I then cut the edges so that I did have an approximate square with straight edges.

Heat olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add your onions and cook for about 3-5 minutes (until they are translucent). Then add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add your ground beef to the pan and season with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. Cook until the beef is no longer red, or about 5 minutes (more or less depending on how much beef you are actually using).

Add in the mustard and mix to combine into the beef.

Brush the pastry square with the egg, making sure that you get a good coat around the edges.

Add half the beef filling (if making 2).

Fold the puff pastry to form a triangle.

Using a fork, press the edges of your triangle together, making sure that the pastry is well sealed.

Brush the top of the pastry with egg.

Repeat for the second turnover.

Place turnovers on a baking sheet (with a silicone matt or parchment paper) in the freeze for approximately 5-10 minutes while you pre-heat the oven.

Heat the oven to 415 degrees Fahrenheit.

Take the turnovers out of the freezer and bake for 25 minutes. 

 

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Curry Vegetable Pie

 This is an excellent vegetable pie recipe that we adapted from Mark's brother! It has a lot of great flavor (is not spicy!) and is a great way to use root vegetables. 

Ingredients:

- 1 cup sweet potato, peeled and cut into ½-in chunks

- ¾ cup butternut squash, peeled and cut into ½-in chunks

- ½ cup red potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-in chunks

- 1 cup parsnips, peeled and cut into ½-in chunks

- 1 cup carrots, peeled and cut into ½-in chunks

- 1 leek (just the white part), washed and sliced

- 1 cup of frozen peas

- ½ yellow onion, chopped

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 1.5 tbsp unsalted butter

- ¾ cup vegetable broth

- ¼ cup milk

- 2 tbsp flour

- 2 tsp curry powder

- 1 deep dish pie crust, frozen.

- Optional (but delicious): puff pastry for the top

- Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

2. In a bowl, toss sweet potato, red potato, butternut squash, leek, carrots, parsnip in the olive oil and season with sea salt and black pepper. Spread evenly on a roasting pan and roast in the preheated oven until vegetables are slightly softened, 20 minutes.

3. With about 5 minutes left on the roasting vegetables, heat ½ tablespoon of butter in a large pot over medium heat; cook and stir the onion until slightly softened, about 4-5 minutes.

4. Simultaneously, heat together the vegetable broth and milk in a small, separate saucepan over medium heat until the mixture is almost at a boil.

5. Add the roasted vegetables to the onions and add the remaining 1 tbsp of butter and season with salt and black pepper. Cook and stir until the butter is melted.

6. Add the peas to the pot of vegetables.

7. Place the pie crust into the oven and pre-bake for approximately 8-10 minutes.

8. Stir the flour and curry powder into the pot of vegetables until evenly coated.

9. Gradually pour the broth mixture into the vegetable mixture and stir until the liquid has thickened, about 3 minutes.

10. Remove the pie crust from the oven.

11. Fill the pie crust with the mixture and top with puff pastry (however you choose)

12. Bake until the pastry is golden brown and puffed, about 20 minutes.

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Adventures in Puff Pastry

 Inauguration Day seemed like a good day to try something new (and tasty)! So I decided to make some puff pastry. It is actually surprisingly easy! You need cold butter. I used butter straight out of the fridge (not freezer) and that worked very well. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 1/4 cup of cold butter (2.5 sticks)
• 1/2-3/4 cup of cold water

Whisk together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut the cold butter into 1/4-in chunks. Add to the flour and toss to coat. 

 

Stir in the water (start with 1/2 cup) until a thick dough like the picture below forms. I found that I actually needed to add a bit more water (so I added closer to 3/4 cup in total) to get a dough ball that I could work with. 

Gather the dough into a ball, flatten it into a disk, and wrap it in plastic wrap (or beeswax if you are eco-conscious like me!). Chill the dough for one hour in the fridge. 

                                 

Dust your work surface with flour. Unwrap the dough and roll into a rectangle (as best you can...mine was more an oval). Fold the dough in thirds, like an envelope. Then turn 90 degrees, roll it into a rectangle again, and fold in thirds again. I repeated this two more times. 

Wrap the dough again and chill in the fridge for 2 hours before using. 

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