How To Make a Warm Dill Cheese Ball

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.