Mini Pastries

I kept back half of the Danish Pastry dough from the other day in the fridge thinking may be a tarte tatin or something could come of it. However, it had other plans and its plans were escape! It has risen by about 4 times the volume of the original even though it was chilled and wrapped in cling film. Since it was about to bust out of the fridge and leave I thought I’d better do something about it, fast! Mini pastries seemed the perfect idea. We had a few odd handfuls of various fruits and we have a special fridge just for “jars of stuff” with an entire shelf dedicated jams so finding a jam to match each was never going to be a problem!

These are so very very good! I usually take a muffin of some kind to work for my breakfast but tomorrow I’m taking these. I started with two in the box but that quickly became four as I taste tested one of the blueberry ones and they’re sublime! I ended up with Blueberry, Apple, Redcurrant and Strawberry pastries. I’ll post the picture of the strawberry ones at the end… noone needs those spoiling their appetite!

Makes approx 25 mini pastries

1/2 quantity danish pastry dough
selection of fresh fruits (I used slices eating apple, blueberries, strawberries and redcurrants)
selection of matching jams (I used mixed apple jelly, blueberry conserve, strawberry jam and redcurrant jelly)

– Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 5mm.
– Cut out as many 6cm circles as you can and place them well spaced out on a lined baking tray.
– Put a scant teaspoon of jam in the centre of each circle and a few slices/pieces of fruit on top.
– Leave to rise for about 30 minutes until slightly puffy.
– Heat the oven to gas mark 4.
– Bake for 15 minutes until just turning golden brown. (Since you’re probably baking 2 trays at a time I tend to bake for 10 minutes then swap the trays over and bake for another 5 minutes giving a few minutes extra if necessary.)
– Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack until cool enough to eat.

The strawberry pastries were a bit of a disaster aesthetically speaking. The jam escaped and ran everywhere leaving the tray of strawberry pastries looking like some horrific crime had been committed and preventing the dough from rising much in places. The homemade jam I used was a bit too runny for my liking so be careful if your jam isn’t very thick as it may well escape too. They still tasted fine but they were a bit of a sticky mess.