Shortcut Cheese Danishes with Homemade Strawberry Sauce

Fact about me: I love pastries. I love them all. Croissants, danishes, macarons, crepes, tartins, you name it. If you’re not obsessed with pastries as much as I am, you may not even recognize the names of some of those. The danish, however, is a pretty recognizable pastry. You can get them just about anywhere these days, including Starbucks. The danish is one of my personal favorites, especially cheese danishes. So instead of having to head to Starbucks (for shall I say a pretty mediocre danish), I wanted to come up with an easy recipe to make at home. These Shortcut Cheese Danishes with Homemade Strawberry Sauce are so easy and so delicious!

Traditionally, danishes are made from a puff pastry-type of yeast-leavened dough. While making homemade puff pastry isn’t overly difficult, it does require a fair amount of time to achieve all of those layers that puff pastry is known for. Instead of using puff pastry for this recipe, we’ll be using a store-bought crescent roll dough. Crescent roll dough is flaky and buttery and is the perfect shortcut for these Shortcut Cheese Danishes.

Ingredients that you’ll need for Shortcut Cheese Danishes

Butter-Flake Croissant/Crescent Rolls– you can find these in the refrigerated section of your grocery. Pilsbury is the most popular brand.

Cream Cheese

Granulated Sugar

Pure Vanilla Extract

Fresh Lemon Juice– you can substitute with bottled, but I’d always recommend fresh over bottled.

Salt

Unsalted Butter

Turbinado (or Coarse) Sugar

One Prepared Batch of Homemade Strawberry Sauce– recipe link is below

Let me show you how to make these Shortcut Cheese Danishes 👇🏻

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Start by preheating you oven to 350 degrees and lining a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine 4 oz softened cream cheese, 3 Tbsp granulated sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice, and a pinch of salt in a medium bowl (or bowl of a stand mixer).Beat with a (hand) mixer until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Set aside.

Open a package of Butter Flake Croissants. Do NOT unroll the dough. Instead, slice through the roll down the middle and then slice each half into thirds- creating 6 rolls. 

Now take a rolling pin (or you can just use your hands) and flatten the dough into 6 flat, round circles. 

Roll up the outside edges to form a lip. Carefully place the Danishes on the baking sheet and begin filling them.

Take about a heaping tablespoon of the cream cheese filling and spread it around the inside well of the 6 pastries. Brush the edges of the Danish with melted butter and then sprinkle the edges with Turbinado Sugar. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the edges are golden brown. It will be pretty puffy when you first pull it out of the oven, but it will flatten slightly as it sits. 

At this point, you could just dust the tops of these with confectioner’s sugar and call it a day….. OR you could top it with some Homemade Strawberry Sauce. I’d recommend topping them with the strawberry sauce…

Enjoy!!

Note: You could also top it with any other kind of preserves or jams that you have on hand. These Danishes are fantastic and super customizable. You can easily double the recipe or you can store any leftovers in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. I would recommend reheating in a 350 degree oven until warm, this will maintain the flaky, crispy texture. You can also reheat in the microwave, the texture will just be softer.