It's finally summer! The recent hot days and the sunshine made me think about being on a beach and drinking a piña colada. I found a recipe that was a crescent roll filled with cream cheese, pineapple and coconut, but I knew these types of flavors would be great with puff pastry in more of a danish-type breakfast treat!
This "braid" is beautiful and crispy when it comes out of the oven, and while it's baking, the entire house smells like warm toasted coconut. I think this is best served warm, because the cream cheese is melty and decadent, but you can easily serve this at room temperature with a hot cup of coffee.
You can ALSO make this with pie crust or crescent roll dough. I would suggest checking the bottom of the pastry, however, at about 30 minutes into the baking to make sure it isn't burning.
Servings: 12
Prep Time: 20 min
Total Time: 1 hr
INGREDIENTS:
1 package of puff pastry, or make your own
Coconut Filling
4 Tbsp butter
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp milk
Cream Cheese Filling
1 8oz package of cream cheese, at room temp
1 20oz can of crushed pineapple
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper.
In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Remove from heat to cool.
Drain the can of crushed pineapple through a strainer. You want to get as much liquid out of the crushed pineapple you can so the pastry doesn't get soggy when it's baking.
Mix the pineapple and the rest of the ingredients of the cream cheese filling together until well combined.
Lay out the puff pastry on the prepared cookie sheet. If you made your own, roll out the puff pastry into a 9x13 inch rectangle before putting in on the cookie sheet.
Spread the cream cheese/pineapple mixture in the center of the puff pastry. If you folded the puff pastry into thirds long ways, that center third is what you will spread the cream cheese in.
Spread the coconut mixture evenly on top of the cream cheese mixture.
Now for the tricky part. To make the braid, use a sharp knife to cut inch-wide strips in diagonals that stop about 1/4 inch from the filling (here's a really good Youtube video to show you how to do this). Fold the strips over the filling in an alternating pattern to form the braid.
Brush the top of the braided loaf with a beaten egg splashed with a little milk. Sprinkle sugar over the top of the pastry.
Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately and carefully (I used 2 big spatulas) place on a drying rack to cool for 10 minutes before cutting and serving!
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