Some dishes you only make for a crowd. You may love it, but there’s no way you can eat it all. That’s one of the great things about the Christmas/New Year’s holidays, is you can eat these party foods for a whole week.
This one takes about five minutes to prepare and 15-20 to bake. Unless you go crazy and make your own pasty, that is.
Ingredients
one can crescent roll dough (see below)
one package (8 ounces) cream cheese
1 tablespoon dill weed
1 egg yolk
Directions
When I decided to make this for a New Year’s party, I didn’t know if the dough I wanted to make would work. So I bought a can of the pre-made dough just in case. If you’d prefer to avoid the manufactured food, start by following the directions for how to make puff pastry.
Once your dough is ready, put the cheese and dill in a mixing bowl.
If you have an electric mixer, use the beater attachment. Start on low until the dill is all stuck to the cheese, then turn it up to high.
You’ll end up having to scrape all the cheese off the edges of the bowl and the beater.
You can do the mixing by hand with a fork, it just takes longer.
When the cheese is mixed, place it all in the center of a square of pastry dough about nine inches square. If you’re using the canned dough, this will be several of the pre-cut triangles. Pinch the perforated edges together before placing the cheese on it.
Bring two of the diagonal corners up to the top and squeeze them together. Then do the same with the other corners.
I didn’t pinch the edges together nearly well enough. You’ll see down below how it opened up while baking. I do this nearly every year, and I always tell myself to remember next time. I’m putting this note here so when I look this recipe up next year I’ll see it. Hey Drew! Pinch the edges together better this time!
Okay, where was I? Right, the egg wash. Beat the egg yolk together with one tablespoon of water and brush it over the top of the pastry. The egg wash will give the shiny golden finish.
Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown.
Serve with crackers and apple wedges for dipping.
And that’s it.
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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12 Comments
Oh my god, that looks heavenly!!! I just got up and I totally want that for breakfast.
Melissa, that’s why I don’t read food blogs before breakfast.
Mmmm that looks so good. I’m havin’ friends over for football Sunday, thanks for the recipe!
Drew, you are right to do so. I had cake for breakfast. I blame you.
Rebel, the dill works really well with apples. But you can get crazy creative with what herbs you put in. Just think what you’d put in a chip dip, and replace the sour cream with cream cheese.
Melissa, I take no credit for your cake issues.
It actually looks really good opened up at the end – like a sneak peek at the delicious goodness hiding inside!
Yeah, but it doesn’t stay warm as long.
A baked dill cream cheese dip sounds really good!
I think only crazy people and the French make their own puff pastry…
Kevin, it is. That’s why I want another one … but I can’t justify making it just for me. Hmm, need to find an excuse for a party …
Sweet Bird, well I’m not French.
This got made for the Superbowl that we just had. First off, the dill and cream cheese combination was delicious!! But, we did have some problems. We made sure that all the seams were well sealed and the dough was layered over each other on the top. This seemed to create a problem though where the dough stayed fairly raw on the inside (result of the melting cheese?) and after baking, I couldn’t really get at the cheese in a reasonable way with my cracker. How can I make this more of a dip and less of a cheese pastry? I ended up cutting it into pieces and eating it that way and ignored the apples and crackers.
I definitely want to try and make it again, just looking for some tips. Thanks!
Well, as you can tell from mine I wasn’t real good about sealing the seams. That was an accident, but probably worked out better. Even with it open on top, we usually cut into it and fold the pastry dough back so we can get to the cheese.
I actually prefer dipping tart apples, like Granny Smith. For crackers, you’ll want something a little more sturdy than a Ritz. As you found out, cream cheese is still pretty stiff even after beating it with herbs.
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