Description
Delight in these Strawberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Pastries featuring flaky puff pastry filled with a luscious blend of cream cheese and strawberry jam, topped with fresh strawberries and dusted with powdered sugar. Perfect for a sweet morning treat or brunch.
Ingredients
Scale
Pastry
- 1 sheet (8.6 oz) puff pastry
Filling
- 2 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1 1/2 Tbsp strawberry jam
- 1 drop red food coloring (or beet powder), optional
- 2/3 cup very small diced strawberries
Topping & Glaze
- 1 large egg whisked with 1 Tbsp water
- Powdered sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- Prepare Puff Pastry: Thaw puff pastry according to package directions. While thawing halfway, preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit to ensure it's hot when baking.
- Make Cream Cheese Filling: In a small bowl, blend cream cheese, strawberry jam, and optional red food coloring using a rubber spatula. Press mixture against the bowl to smooth out lumps. Chill in the refrigerator or briefly in the freezer to firm up.
- Cut Pastry Shapes: Use a 3-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut as many hearts as possible from the puff pastry sheet, placing cuts closely together.
- Prepare Baking Sheet: Place cut hearts onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone liner or parchment paper, spacing them about 1 1/2 inches apart for even baking.
- Score Pastry Hearts: Lightly score a smaller heart inside each cut-out, about 1/3 inch from the edge without cutting through the bottom layer. This creates a border for the filling.
- Fill Pastries: Spoon about 1 teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture onto the center of each heart and gently spread outward, avoiding the scored border. Sprinkle diced strawberries evenly over the cream cheese layer, again leaving the edge clear.
- Seal Edges: Brush the exposed 1/3-inch edge with the egg and water wash to help the edges brown and seal during baking.
- Bake: Bake pastries in the preheated oven for 15 minutes until the edges are golden brown and puffed.
- Cool and Serve: Transfer pastries to a wire rack to cool. Once cooled, dust with powdered sugar and serve fresh on the day they are made for optimal texture and flavor.
Notes
- For a quicker version, cut 6 rectangles instead of hearts. Increase cream cheese to 3 oz, strawberry jam to 2 1/2 Tbsp, and diced strawberries to 1 cup to cover the extra surface area.
- Use beet powder as a natural alternative to red food coloring for a subtle color boost.
- Flash chilling the cream cheese mixture helps it to hold shape better when spreading on the pastry.
- Serve pastries the same day to enjoy the crisp texture of the puff pastry.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 pastry
- Calories: 180 kcal
- Sugar: 10 g
- Sodium: 110 mg
- Fat: 11 g
- Saturated Fat: 5 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 5 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 17 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Cholesterol: 35 mg
