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.