These puff pastry pockets are filled with jam and a sweetened cream cheese, and then they’re topped with fresh berries. They’re for breakfast, they’re for lunch, and they’re for dessert! And they’re kind of perfect for a patriotic holiday like Memorial Day or 4th of July or just a spring/summer treat. Here’s how you make them:
Sold in the freezer section as sheets or shells, Puff Pastry thaws at room temperature in 40 minutes. Lay out two sheets of thawed Puff Pastry on a flat surface. Cut each sheet into 9 to 12 equal squares (depending on the size of your star cookie cutter). Then take a star cookie cutter and cut stars out of 1/2 of the squares. Place the intact squares on a baking sheet.
Place a spoonful of jam (raspberry… blueberry… strawberry) on each of the Puff Pastry squares.
Place the cut out squares on top of the jam squares.
Seal the edges of each Puff Pastry square with the tines of a fork. Sprinkling with chunky white sugar is an optional step (I did it).
Bake for 20 minutes. You can put the stars on a separate baking sheet and sprinkle them with goodies or whatever. This is where the “puffing” happens, as you can see from the photo!
Fresh out of the oven, you can sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Let them cool completely while you make the filling. The filling is simple: cream cheese + powdered sugar + cream.
Scoop the filling into a piping bag and pipe it into the star center of each pastry. If you don’t have a fancy schmancy piping bag, just spoon it into a plastic zip bag, snip the corner and squeeze it on that way.
Add a few fresh berries on top! These Patriotic Pastries are best after having been refrigerated for an hour of so. The filling firms up a little and gets nice and chilly… then you bite into it and get a mouthful of flaky Puff Pastry layers, a hint of jam, a dollop of sweet cream filling and fresh fruit too!
We’ll be spending some time with friends over Memorial Day weekend, and I intend to surprise them with these treats for breakfast. Besides the amazing-delicious taste, they’ve also got the “cute factor” going for them. Cute food is a major bonus in my world. My taste-tester husband thought they’d also make a wonderful dessert. My kiddo ate them as after-school snacks! It’s safe to say that they were a very big hit in my house. And I know my friends are going to like them too! You can share your own Puff Pastry recipes on the Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Facebook page (look for the Puffection™ tab), and you can also visit www.puffpastry.com for more recipes, tips and how-to videos. Disclosure: I was compensated to create a recipe for Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry (a product that I’ve used and loved in my kitchen for many years!) All opinions shared about this product are my own.
