Salted Caramel, Apple, and Cheese Danishes

 I can never decide which I like more: apple or cheese danishes. So I opted to make a combination of the two! And a winning combination it is! Especially when topped with the salted caramel sauce! These little pastries were amazing warm from the oven and smothered in the rich caramel sauce! I unfortunately only made 9 of them, but I've doubled the recipe here for future reference. I won't be making that mistake again!


Salted Caramel, Apple, and Cheese Danishes
recipe by Sabrina W. for eat.drink.and be merry.
makes 18 danishes
3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin
1/4 butter, at room temperature
4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 sheets puff pastry, thawed 
1 egg plus 2 tablespoons water (egg wash)


for the salted caramel:
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/2 whipping cream
2 tablespoons butter
1/8 teaspoon salt


To make the danishes, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.


Mix together butter, cream cheese, flour, lemon juice, sugar, and vanilla and set aside.


On a floured, clean surface. Cut each thawed puff pastry dough into 9 even squares. You should end up with 18 squares total.


Brush each edge with egg wash and fold pastry an 1/8 of an inch in on each side to form an edge. Poke holes in each pastry with a fork and sprinkle with sugar.


Drop 1 teaspoonful of the cheese mixture and spread out evenly in tarts. I used my fingers here to spread it out, it was way easier than working with the spoon.


Arrange sliced apples on top of cheese mixture. Brush the edges with the egg wash and carefully transfer the pastries to a greased baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool in the pans.


To make the salted caramel, mix sugar and water in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Once the sugar clumps together to form small looking rocks, add in the cream, stirring constantly. At this point it looks as if you have ruined your caramel, but just keep stirring and the rocks with dissolve as the liquid bubbles. Once melted, add in the butter and salt. Drizzle over pastries and enjoy!