Denmark

It was a toss up between Frikadeller meat balls and cabbage or a pecan danish pastry for our Denmark dish. The pastry won.. and how could it not? Flaky buttery pastry, creamy sweet filling, crunchy pecan nuts, drizzled with icing and maple syrup.... mmmmmm. Now I'm not a domestic goddess, I don't have days to stay at home rolling and folding butter into layers of pastry, as much as I would like to... so I cheated. Frozen puff pastry isn't techically Danish pastry, but it was pretty darn close and it worked for me.



Cream Cheese & Pecan Danish
(recipe adapted from www.astray.com)

Ingredients

Pack frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 tub Philidelphia cream cheese
1/4 cup icing sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
3/4 cup pecans, chopped

glaze
1/2 tub Philidelphia cream cheese
1 tbsp milk
3/4 cup icing sugar
handful chopped pecans

Maple syrup

Roll pastry to about 5mm thick. Cut into 9 rectangles.

Mix 1 egg, 1 tub cream cheese, 1/4 cup icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract thoroughly with food mixer. Stir in the chopped pecans. Cut slanting cuts (about a third of the dough) into both sides of the rectangle leaving the centre plain. Spread the filling down the centre then take the strips and fold them over creating a plait. Brush with egg wash and bake in a pre heated oven, gas mark 5 for about 20mins until golden brown.

Mix the ingredients for the glaze, adding the pecans at the end. Drizzle over the cooled danish pastries. Drizzle with maple syrup.


Enjoy!