Easy Cheese Danish is a perfect blend of vanilla cream cheese and cherry jam

Treat yourself to delicious Cheese Danishes, packed with vanilla cream cheese and cherry jam. Thanks to ready-made ingredients, whipping up these delicacies is quick and fast. Perfect for breakfast or an afternoon coffee break, Cheese Danish invites you to sit back, relax, and enjoy every mouthful!

YOU MIGHT have heard of a Cheese Danish before. Don't let the name trick you into thinking it's a savory snack! This delicious pastry actually hails from Vienna and made its way to America through Denmark.

Cherry Cheese Danish is a classic version of this pastry, featuring vanilla cream cheese and cherry pie filling spread over a puff pastry base. In this recipe, we swap cherry pie filling for cherry jam, and instead of the traditional Viennese dough, you can use easy ready-made puff pastry sheets. These sheets are simple to cut and fill, making the process quick and hassle-free. Plus, if you only want to make a few pastries, you can conveniently melt just the amount you need from the freezer!

The cherry jam is added to the pastries after baking. There's really no point in baking the jam; it would just spread out in the oven, and you'd end up with a mouthful of scorching hot jam. Let's be honest, who has the patience to wait for the jam to cool before digging in? By adding the cherry jam afterwards, you get perfectly delicious, ready-to-eat pastries without the risk of burning your tongue!

If your local store doesn't sell vanilla cream cheese, you can easily make your own version by mixing plain cream cheese with vanilla sugar or powdered sugar and vanilla bean seeds. For a vegan version of Cheese Danish, simply use puff pastry made with margarine and vegan cream cheese, and leave out the egg.

Cherry Cheese Danish

Ingredients:

1 packet (500 g) puff pastry/pastry sheets
200 g vanilla cream cheese
1 jar cherry jam (e.g., Filos Greek cherry jam)
1 egg
(powdered sugar for decoration)

Instructions:

Take the frozen pastry out to melt about an hour before baking. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius. Cut the pastry sheet in half and stick it with a fork, making holes about a centimeter from the edge, so the center doesn't rise in the oven. Spread a tablespoon of vanilla cream cheese on each pastry base, leaving about a centimeter from the edge empty. Brush the edges with the egg.

Place the pastry bases in the oven and bake for about 10–15 minutes. When the bases come out of the oven, add a spoonful of jam on top of each. Let the pastries cool a bit, decorate with a dusting of powdered sugar if you want, and enjoy with coffee or tea.

Design Stories contributor Suvi Kesäläinen is a photographer, who loves to create dishes that are not only delicious but also fast and easy to make. She’s passionate about the best seasonal ingredients, local food, and intriguing culinary trends.

See also:

• All tableware >

Text and images: Suvi Kesäläinen