Tag: Puff pastry

Toasted Almond Honey Cream Cheese Puffs with Jam

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Who needs a creative title when the ingredient list looks this tasty? This, friends, was what came of a post-wedding cake craving for sweet, cheesecakey goodness.

It did not taste like cheese cake. It was delicious. It was easy. I will be making these again.

Plus, the puffs are super cute.

Like many great concoctions, this began with a store-bought roll of puff pastry. I buy these en masse when they go on sale, and I throw them into the freezer. When I want to use one for dinner, I take it out of the freezer in the morning. Easy peasey.

I used some cute silicone cupcake cups, cut squares of puff pastry dough into squares to fit the cups.

Filling:
-big handful of toasted almonds, coarsely chopped
-light cream cheese (maybe ¼ cup?)
-equal part local honey (1:1 ratio with the cream cheese)

Mix the cream cheese and honey until smooth. Add toasted chopped almonds.

Spoon into puff pastry cups– just a spoonful in each, to cover the base.

Top with a very small spoonful of jam (I used strawberry).

Put cups onto baking tray. Pop into preheated oven (I cooked mine at 160 C/ 320 Funtil the puff pastry turned lightly golden)

Eat.Image

Thanks, Chow.com–another surprisingly easy recipe of love :)

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A bunch of Bananas.
Image via Wikipedia

We had some friends over for lunch (almoço) on Sunday, and despite the heat and a generally relaxed attitude, I decided to try my hand at dessert.

Enter Chow.com.

I flipped through some ideas on Saturday, and the Upside-Down Banana-Coffee tart jumped out– primarily because we’d just bought a lot of bananas (I’m still on that smoothie kick). The other reason, of course, was that I had all the ingredients in the house 🙂

Before I hand you over to the good, good lovin’ at Chow.com, I’ll note that I eliminated all the lemon details (zest and juice) from the recipe, and I used a store-bought puff-pastry dough. Also, be sure to tuck the edges of the pastry crust down into the sides of the pan…you won’t contain all of the delicious gooeyness, nor should you…but you want to keep some of it inside the tart 🙂

Upside-Down Banana-Coffee Tart Recipe

Upside-Down Banana-Coffee Tart
Difficulty: Hard

TIME/SERVINGS

Total: 1 hr

Active: 25 mins

Makes: 12 servings

Upside-Down Banana-Coffee TartSee More in the Gallery

  By Regan Burns

We got the inspiration for this recipe from the French apple upside-down tart known as tarte Tatin. For our version, we’ve replaced the apples with bananas and infused the caramel with coffee.

What to buy: Look for firm-ripe bananas that are still tinged with a bit of green—if they are too ripe, they’ll turn to mush in the oven.

Special equipment: A 12-inch cast iron skillet is perfect for this recipe; however, if you don’t have one, any heavy-bottomed, oven-safe frying pan will work.

Be sure to have a platter or plate slightly larger than your skillet handy for turning out the tart once it’s cooled. One with a slight lip or rim is preferable, as the caramel tends to spread a little once the tart is unmolded.

Game plan: For a slacker solution, use high-quality store-bought pie dough in place of making your own.

This recipe was featured in our Cast Iron Cooking story.

…Get the rest of the ingredients, directions, reader comments (always worth reading!), and delicious gooey goodness here.