Cheese Danish Boats

May 2, 2020 by Nicole Collins

Happy accidents...

Gotta love them!

Today's recipe is actually a result of a happy accident, so you're REALLY gonna love them after you see what's happening today!

So with the stay home orders in place, I've really been making every effort to keep my behind inside. For the most part, that's not a problem. But, the only thing that I really miss is the grocery store.

I've been going to the grocery store myself about once every 3 weeks to get meats and produce. But other than that, I've done a couple supplementary Instacart orders to get supplies like eggs, milk, bagged produce, and things like that.

Now, anyone who knows me knows how much I love grocery shopping. So as much as it hurts me to not be able to go grocery shopping at my leisure, it hurts me even more to have someone else do the shopping for me.

But, I really appreciate everyone that is out in the world risking their lives to run errands for others so that I can stay home safe. So, I'll continue to utilize those services and give extra tip in order to try to support someone else's livelihood.

Anyways, I've had a pretty good experience with Instacart until my last order. My shopper was a dud. He made a few mistakes, got me a few things that I didn't order, and gave me some odd replacements instead of refunding the items like I asked. I mean, this guy gave me cilantro instead of green onions. NOT THE SAME, MISTER!

All of his errors are ones that I can live with. But, the best mistake he made was getting me the wrong croissants. I ordered the big sandwich sized croissants, but he got me the minis, instead. You can't really go wrong with flaky, buttery pastry. So, the little guys gave me some inspiration, and today's recipe was born.

So today, we're making Cheese Danish Boats!

I'm am soooooo happy with how these adorable little babies turned out. They're gorgeous. They're delicious. And, they're super easy to whip up with not a lot of effort.

Making a cheese danish usually involves wrapping some kind of puff pastry or crescent dough around a cream cheese mix. But, we're going to cheat and use store bought mini croissants that are already baked and ready to go. To make room for our danish filling, we're going to cut little windows in the fattest part of the croissant, pull out the extra layers of pastry, and spoon our cream cheese mixture right into the little rectangular boxes we created.

Our cheese danish filling is a super simple mixture of softened cream cheese, sugar, egg, a splash of vanilla, and a pinch of salt. We use a hand mixer to blend everything together until it's smooth and creamy, then it's ready to get stuffed in our croissants.

Now since our pastry is already baked, we need to be strategic in how we bake these. We need the cheesecake-like filling to cook through without burning our croissants. So, we're going to place these in a casserole dish and just lay a piece of aluminum foil on top. That way the filling can cook, the croissants are shielded from burning, but it's not tightly wrapped up enough to cause a steaming situation. We'll take the shield off during the last few minutes so that the danishes can get a little extra golden, then they're ready to cool and glaze!

To finish these beauties off, we're going to make a quick glaze from powdered sugar and milk to drizzle right over our pastries. We need to give the glaze a few minutes to set before we go digging in; but after they dry, all bets are off!

Once we're done, we have a handheld, sweet, delicious, comforting breakfast pastry to nibble on for a few days. These keep pretty well in the fridge when wrapped up in a plastic baggie; so one day they're breakfast, and the next day they're dessert!

Ok, everyone! I'm feeling extra breakfasty lately (surprise, surprise), so our next few meals might just keep the breakfast theme going.

For now, enjoy. And, let's eat!

---

Cheese Danish Boats

Serves: 16 danishes Print

Ingredients:

• 16 mini croissants

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened

• ¼ cup granulated sugar

• 1 egg

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• pinch of salt

• ½ cup powdered sugar

• 1 tbsp milk (I used 2%)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a large casserole dish with parchment paper.

2. To a mixing bowl, add cream cheese, granulated sugar, egg, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Use a hand mixer to beat the mix until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

3. Arrange croissants in a single layer in the prepared casserole dish. Using a small sharp knife, cut a rectangular hole in the thickest part of the croissant, making sure to cut all the way to the bottom without going through the bottom shell of the croissant. Remove the bread cut out, from the croissant. Use a spoon to fill the rectangle holes with cream cheese mix. Loosely lay a piece of aluminum foil on top of the casserole dish. Bake covered for 15 mins. Remove the foil tent, and bake uncovered an additional 3-4 minutes until the croissants are golden brown. Transfer croissants to a cooling rack set on top of a piece of wax or parchment paper.

4. In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar and milk. Stir until smooth. After the croissants have cooled for at least 10 minutes, drizzle glaze over the croissant boats. Allow the glaze to dry for about 15 minutes. Serve!

Recipe notes:

*See pics in post for what the rectangular holes in the croissants should look like. When you cut the rectangle with the knife, the flaky layers of the croissant create a natural release making it easy to pull out the bread you're not using. Save scraps for snacking later.

*When you're filling the croissants, it's ok if the filling comes out over the top a little bit. It's firm enough that it won't drip.

*We're using a casserole dish instead of a baking tray so that we can lay the foil on top without touching the croissants. Since the croissants are already cooked, we don't want them to burn while the filling cooks. The foil only acts as a shield which is why we don't need to secure it to the dish. The largest dish I have is 9x13, so I baked these in two batches. You don't have to wait for both batches to cool before you add the glaze. If the glaze thickens while you're waiting for the second batch to cook and cool, just give it a stir and it'll be thin like new.

*Store leftovers in a plastic bag in the fridge.