Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope you had a great winter break. I definitely did! Christmas dinner for me involved making these pastries. I’ve actually been making these for a couple of years, but never thought to type up the recipe before. It came from a random idea I had a couple of Thanksgivings ago, where I’d wanted to make baked brie with a sheet of puff pastry I had but also wanted to make some Danish-style pastries…so I ended up kind of doing both, with them combined. It was everyone’s favorite that year, and I’ve been making it every year since then!

Ingredients

The ingredients for this are so simple, just three things:

• Frozen puff pastry
• Jam, any flavor
• Brie cheese

Folding Pastries

There are many different ways to fold these pastries, but here are a few that I like, ordered approximately from least to most complicated:

• Foldover: This is pretty easy! Just place the filling in a diagonal line along the square, and fold over the corners of the dough that don’t have filling into the center of the dough, so that the filling is almost “wrapped” in the filling.
• Pocket: This is very similar to the foldover, except in this case you place the filling just in the center and fold every corner of the dough over it, so it forms a little pocket.
• Diamond: Cut an “L” shaped slit along the top left and bottom right corner of a dough square, leaving a strip in the corner. The Ls can get close to connecting, but not all the way since that would cut off the entire border of the square. Fold each L over to the edge of the other side, aligned with the cut line for the opposing L. It should form a diamond shape with little folds on the ends. Place the filling in the middle.
• Pinwheel: Cut a slit along each diagonal of a dough square, starting from the corner and stopping a couple of centimeters from the center. (Don’t cut all the way to the center, or you’ll end up with four different triangles instead of one pastry!) Fold the dough on the left of each cut into the center, just the part near the cut line, so that each of the four sections of the dough looks like a folded over triangle. It doesn’t matter which side is left or right from the reference view; just make sure that you select the same side each time so that each triangle is folded in a consistent, rotationally symmetric pattern. Place the filling on top.
• Braid: This one is a little tricky. Take the square and cut a few parallel diagonal slashes in the left side and then the right side of the square, each set of slashes pointing towards the bottom (the slashes on the left and right shouldn’t be parallel). Place the filling in the middle third of the dough, the part that isn’t sliced. Fold the strips of dough formed by the slashes towards the middle, over the filling, starting from the top of the square and working your way down. Fold over or cut off any leftover dough after folding in all the strips.

Tips

• Keep in mind the difference between jam and jelly: Jelly is a spread made from fruit juice, while jam and marmalade have pieces of fruit in them and are thickened with pectin. Jam/marmalade is going to give you a better flavor than jelly, so opt for that if possible.
• Most flavors of jam will work well. I happened to have some cranberry-pear jam lying around, which was very on theme for the holidays, but any flavor will taste great! Pepper jam is another good choice, or I love plain strawberry! The main flavor I’d stay away from is grape jam.
• Everyone’s oven runs differently, so keep an eye on the pastries while in the oven to make sure they don’t get too dark – the jam is high in sugar, so it will burn fast if overbaked.
• Try not to overfill the pastries – always better to err on the side of underfilling, since overfilling can cause pastries to lose their shape.

Ratatouille Shakshuka Skillet

Baked brie pastries, an easy three-ingredient appetizer

Prep Time: 20 min	Cook Time: 20 min
Total Time: 40 min	Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
• 1/2 cup jam
• 1 block brie cheese (about 12 oz)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Roll out the puff pastry a little bit until it is about 12in by 9in.
3. Cut it into 12 squares, each 3 in by 3 in. It should be a 4 by 3 grid.
4. Cube the brie cheese into 2cm cubes. You can leave in the rind – it tastes great!
5. Fold each pastry square into a danish shape of your choice.
6. Add the filling: a teaspoon of jam first, then a cube or two of cheese. Depending on the type of pastry fold, it can accomodate more or less filling, so be aware of this. If it feels like it’s hard to get the fillings to stay on/in, they probably will leak in the oven. So be aware of this, and don’t force too much filling in, however tempting it is!
7. Place the pastries on a lined baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Enjoy!

Notes

This recipe is vegetarian.