Hello again!! Today I am bringing you a quick and simple recipe for some delicious cheese pastries. Back home they call them “quesitos”, meaning little cheeses, and are really what my childhood memories are made of. The best part? You only need 4 ingredients!! Yup that’s right, just 4: puff pastry sheets, cream cheese, one egg and sugar.
INGREDIENTS
1 Box of Puff Pastry Sheets( I used Pepperidge Farm)
1 Egg whites
3/4 Block of Cream Cheese (I used Philadelphia)
2 tsp of granulated sugar (for the cheese filling)
extra sugar to sprinkle
The box of puff pastry comes with two sheet folded on thirds. These pastries are supposed to be bite size, so we are going to cut each sheet third in four pieces. This recipe will yield 24 delicious “quesitos”. The sheets come covered with a bit of white flour so they don’t stick everywhere, and trust me you will be thankful that Pepperidge thought of that. I personally like to sprinkle a little bit of sugar on them before I start to add some extra flavor.
a third of one puff pastry sheet cut in 4 pieces
Now for the filling!! I start by taking 3/4 of an 8 oz block of cream cheese and soften it on the microwave for 10 seconds. Then I add 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar to the cheese and blend them with a fork. Once it is completely soft and evenly blended, I add 2 teaspoons of the mix to each pastry square.
The next step is folding, and it might be an art in itself. I have my own technique, but really you can fold them however you want as long as there are no openings where the cheese can escape through. A summary of my folding technique can be summarize as pinch, tuck & pinch and turn/twist. ^-^ Below are some pictures to help you understand how to do it.
pinch the two ends of the square
tuck the ends of the square and pinch the two new corners together
side view of the tucked and pinched ends
Now you are going to take each “tucked & pinched” corner and you are going to turn or twist them to opposite sides and the result should look like the picture below.
twist both ends to opposite sides
Next, whisk one egg white until it becomes all foam just like the picture below.
whisked egg whites
Then, spread a bit of the egg whites foam on top of each pastry roll and sprinkle some granulated sugar on top of them.
Bake them for 13 minutes at 400 F. You are looking for that nice gold brown color on the sugar. Let them rest for 15 min before serving.
Try them out and tell me what you think in the comment section. -M
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ENJOY WITH COFFEE!
Puerto Rican Quesitos – Cheese Pastries
Equipment
- Oven
Ingredients
- 0.75 8 oz bar Cream Cheese
- 1 unit Large Egg (only whites)
- 2 tsp Granulated Sugar
- 2 tsp Granulated Sugar (to sprinkle)
- 1 box Puff Pastry Sheets
Instructions
- Soften the cream cheese by warming for 20 seconds in the microwave
- Mix in sugar into the soften cream cheese
- Cut each sheet of puff pastry into 12 small rectangles (see pictures/video)
- Sprinkle each rectangle with a bit of sugar
- Place a dollop of cream cheese mixture in the center of the rectangle
- Fold the pastries following the Fold, Fold, Pinch and Twist technique (see pictures/video)
- Whisk the whites of one egg until foamy
- Cover each pasty with the bubbles or foam from the egg whites
- Sprinkle each pastry with sugar
- Cover a large cookie baking sheet with aluminum foil and slightly mist with non-stick spray
- Transfer each pastry and place about 1" apart
- Bake in an oven at 400 F degrees for 13 minutes
- Let them rest for 15 minutes
- Enjoy!