Cherry Danish with Cream Cheese and Almonds is the light and delightfully sweet breakfast treat you didn’t realize you needed. This recipe is simple to prepare but will look beautiful enough to make you feel like a pastry chef.
If you have extra time on your hands, try this recipe with homemade Danish dough from scratch!
This recipe was originally posted June 28, 2016, we’ve tweaked it a bit since then. This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.
Cherry Danish with Cream Cheese and Almonds
Cherry season is in full swing right now. If you ran out of ideas on what to make with the abundance of cherries this year, give this cherry danish with cream cheese and almonds a try! The puff pastry is store-bought, so it’s a very quick dessert. They’re bite-size shape make them a perfect party dessert as well.
Ingredients for Cherry Danish Recipe
- Cream Cheese
- Powdered Sugar
- Vanilla Extract
- Almond Extract
- Egg
- Puff Pastry
- Fresh Cherries
- Cornstarch
- Granulated Sugar
- Lemon Juice
- Milk
How to Make a Cherry Danish with Cream Cheese and Almonds
- Begin by preheating your oven to 400 degrees and reading your baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine cream cheese and sugar as instructed to soften and mix in eggs until combined.
- Roll out puff pastry and prepare as directed for filling with the cheese danish mixture
- Prepare your cherries for filling the pastry.
- Fill pastry as instructed and bake for 15 minutes.
- Optional drizzle a homemade glaze over each cherry danish and top with slivered almonds.
The assembly process for these cherry danish pastries is easy to manage in an assembly line.
Tips for making Cherry Danish Recipe
One of my favorite things about this easy cherry danish recipe is that I don’t have to do a ton of prep work. Using a ready-made puff pastry dough makes this so easy to manage! As you prepare your pastry dough, I recommend using a small pizza cutter to slice into squares. This just makes the process a bit easier to manage and creates more uniform pieces.
You may use frozen pitted cherries if fresh are not available. If doing so, make sure to allow them to fully thaw and remove any excess liquid so it does not create a mushy pastry while cooking.
More Danish Recipes
If you loved our cherry danish recipe, I know you will love my other pastry and danish recipes. These are ideal for breakfast or a special treat with coffee when having guests.
Cherry Danish Recipe
Ingredients
Ingredients for the cream cheese filling
- 1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp almond extract
- 1 egg
- 1 package frozen puff pastry sheet
Ingredients for the cherry filling
- 2 cups sweet fresh cherries pitted
- 1 Tbsp corn starch
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
Ingredients for the glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp milk
- 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
Instructions
- In a bowl, combine 8 oz softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1/4 tsp almond extract.
- Then add in 1 egg and mix it just to combine.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out both sheets of thawed puff pastry to a 12 x 12-inch square. Do this using a rolling pin.
- Cut each sheet into 9 even squares. Then cut a 1-inch border around each square.
- Transfer each square to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brush the edge border of each square with egg wash (1 egg + 1 Tbsp water).
- Pit 2 cups of fresh cherries and cut them into halves. I recommend using a cherry pitter to make this step a lot faster.
- Combine the cherries with 1 Tbsp corn starch, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and 2 Tbsp lemon juice.
- Place 1 heaping tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture into the center of each square. Then place 1 tbsp of the cherry mixture on top. Sprinkle some sliced almonds on top of the cherries as well. Then bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile combine 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tbsp milk, and 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice. This will be the glaze. Once the pastries are cooled, drizzle the glaze over each square.
Nutrition
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Cindy says
The cherry filling needs to be cooked first so that the cornstarch can thicken the cherry sauce. Otherwise, the runny filling leeks off the pastry and burns on the parchment and doesn’t allow the pastry to rise because it gets soaked. I brought the filling to a boil stirring constantly until I achieved a thick sauce. After cooking the cherry filling, I let it cool, then added on top of the cream cheese filling. The second batch worked much better.
Linda says
These look fantastic … but I’m confused about cutting the 1 inch border in the puff pastry. Do you score the pastry or cut all the way through? What is the purpose of the cut? Doesn’t the filling leak out? Thanks.
simplyhomecooked says
Hi Linda, you can either score the border or cut through. The reason I did this is so the outer border rises and curls into the center so the filling doesn’t leak out.