Strawberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Pastries

Strawberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Pastries – A simplified, perfectly tasty pastry recipe! Made with a flaky layer of store-bought puff pastry, a creamy, tangy sweetened cream cheese filling and fresh strawberry topping. Who wouldn’t love them?

Strawberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Pastries

Servings: 9

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 (8.6 oz) sheet puff pastry
• 2 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/2 Tbsp strawberry jam
• 1 drop red food coloring (or use beet powder) optional
• 2/3 cup very small diced strawberries
• 1 large egg whisked with 1 Tbsp water
• Powdered sugar, for dusting

Instructions

1. Thaw puff pastry according to directions on package and halfway through thawing preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
2. While puff pastry is thawing, in a small bowl and using a rubber spatula, mix together cream cheese, jam and food coloring while pressing mixture along bottom and sides of bowl to smooth large lumps. 
3. Transfer to refrigerator until ready to use (so it's not runny, you can flash chill in freezer if you prepared this near the end of the pastry thawing).
4. Cut pastry into heart shapes using a 3-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter (space them as close together as possible so you can get as many as you can out of the sheet). 
5. Transfer hearts to a baking sheet lined with a silicone liner or parchment paper, spacing 1 1/2-inches apart. 
6. Using a sharp pairing knife, lightly score a heart inside of each cut-out heart coming about 1/3-inch from the edge, without cutting entirely through bottom of the dough. 
7. Add 1 tsp of the cream cheese mixture to center of each heart then spread outward without covering the 1/3-inch edge. 
8. Add strawberries over cream cheese layer, again without covering the edge. Using your fingertip brush the 1/3-inch edge with egg/water mixture. 
9. Bake in preheated oven 14 - 15 minutes until edges are golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack then dust with powdered sugar. Serve the day they are prepared.

Recipe Notes

• If you want to save time you could just cut out 6 rectangles and slice the strawberries. Then use 3 oz of cream cheese and 2 1/2 Tbsp jam and 1 cup strawberries since you'll have a little more surface area to cover.