Cheese Danish & Summer Fruit Crumble (Day 138)

Today we had 2 events to go to: a brunch and a birthday party.  To the brunch we brought flowers and cheese danish, and to the birthday party we brought a card and crumble. :)

Easy Cheese Danish
This is an Ina Garten recipe.  For today's brunch I made mine a little smaller for better manageability since we had little ones running around.  Plus, the single recipe only makes 8 and it's more fun to have 2 or more small danishes rather than 1 huge one at times, I think.  (Though I do think a nice, gigantic pastry certainly has its place in this world.)  The fact that this recipe is made with puff pastry from a box makes it easy enough to make the morning you want to serve it, but it's also a fine recipe to make up the night before and refrigerate.  Then all you need to do is bake when you wake up in the morning.  Enjoy!

8 oz cream cheese, room temp
1/3 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2 TB ricotta cheese
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 TB lemon zest (2 lemons)*
2 sheets (1 box) puff pastry
1 egg beaten with water (egg wash)
*2 lemons may seem like a lot for only 1 TB of zest.  However, you need to remember that you should only use the very outer layer of zest on a lemon.  Any more than 1-2 scrapes down and you get to the bitter part of the rind, which you definitely don't want to use!

Preheat the oven to 400*.  Grease a sheet pan or line it with parchment paper.  Cream together the cream cheese and sugar.  Add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest and mix until combined. (Don't whip.)

Unfold 1 sheet of puff pastry and roll it slightly.  Cut into desired size squares or circles.  (Squares help you use all of the pastry without creating scraps, and gives you a funky look for your danishes.)  Place a TB or dollop of the cheese filling on your pastry cut-outs and design how you like.  Brush with the egg wash and refrigerate for 15 minutes (allowing the cheese to thicken and set).  Bake the pastries for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan once during baking, until puffed and brown. 

Summer Fruit Crumble
I love making crumbles!  They are so yummy and versatile!  You can really use any combination of fruit you want--I tend to pick whatever's on sale that week at the grocery store.  Originally, I thought I'd use strawberries plus another fruit, but the prices of strawberries were jacked up this week.  I bought peaches, plums, and blueberries, instead.  To make a basic crumble, just use a mixture of flour, brown sugar, oats, almonds, cinnamon, salt, and cold butter all combined in a food processor.  You can change the amounts based on taste and how much crumble you want to make.  Here's my recipe, which makes enough for a 9 x 13 pan.

1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup oats
1/2 cup sliced almonds
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch or 2 of kosher salt
2 sticks of cold butter, cubed

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until well mixed and the butter is the size of peas.  Spread over a fruit filling and bake at 350* for about 40 minutes.

Fruit filling:
To your fruit combination (I used 4 peaches, 6 plums, & 1 pint of blueberries) add:

juice of 1 lemon
2 TB flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar

Serve the crumble warm with vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream!

Homemade Whipped Cream

1 pint whipping cream
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Whip ingredients on high speed with an electric mixer until soft peaks form.  Keep refrigerated.