These tasty pastries let you get creative in the kitchen and make your own unique flavoured pastries. Think starting your own bakery in your kitchen! All you need is a ready-made roll of puff pastry.
Ingredients
1 roll ready-made puff pastry (I use justrol) Take it out of the fridge 15-20 mins before
jam
bacon / pancetta
cheese
1 egg
chocolate (dark or milk)
olive oil
flaked almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
25g butter
3 tbp brown sugar
I've created 5 flavours for these mini pastries - sweet and savoury.
First up, bacon & egg puffs!
Bacon & Egg puffs
Method
Preheat your oven at 180C fan
1. These require some prebaking. So cut 4 squares (about 1/3 of your pastry) and score a square shape inside each square leaving a 0.5cm border.
2. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 8-10 mins.
3. Once blind baked, remove from the oven and prick the inside square so that it sinks. Pour some of the beaten egg, top with 1 bacon/pancetta strip and finish with some finely grated cheddar.
4. Finish cooking in the oven for 10-15 mins until golden.
Barquette aux fraises
Method
Preheat your oven at 180C fan
1. These require some prebaking. So cut 2 squares and carve out 2 diamond shapes. Within the diamond, score a smaller diamond with a 0.5cm margin to the border. You should have some leftover pastry - save it.
2. Blind bake for 8-10 mins.
3. Once blind baked, remove from the oven and prick the inside diamond so that it sinks. Scoop some jam into the barquette and they are ready to go back in!
4. Bake for 10-15 mins until golden.
Cinnamon rolls
Method
Preheat your oven at 180C fan
1. In a bowl, mix together 25g butter, 2 tbsp brown sugar & 1 heaped tsp of cinnamon until it forms an even paste.
2. Unroll your pastry, it should now be soft enough to unroll fully without breaking. Cut 1/3 of your pastry roll vertically so you have a vertical rectangle size piece of dough.
3. Scoop your cinnamon mixture and put it on your dough. Spread it out in an even layer across all your rectangle using a knife.
4. Now you're ready to roll! Along the long side of the rectangle, begin to tightly roll your dough into a sausage shape.
5. Using a kitchen knife, cut 2cm wide discs along the rolled dough and place them on a lined baking tray, filling facing up.
6. Beat your egg and brush each pastry using a pastry brush or your fingers will do just fine!
7. They are ready to go in the oven and bake for 20-25 mins!
Chocolate twist
Method
Preheat your oven at 180C fan
1. Melt 4 squares of chocolate with 1 tbsp of sugar (only add sugar if you're using unsweetened dark chocolate).
2. Using the left over pastry, flour your worktop slightly and roll the dough out into a long strip with a rolling pin. ( This needs to be wide enough to cut it into two strips lengthways)
3. Cut the strip into two lengthways and take your chocolate mixture. Spread 1/3 of the chocolate over one strip, place the other strip over it and twist! It should look like a chocolatey braid now. You can lightly score the dough in between twists to add detail.
4. Bake for 15 mins until golden.
Pain au chocolate
Now you should have enough dough left to make 2 pain au chocolat. You need two rectangular strips of dough.
Method
Preheat your oven at 180C fan
1. On your first rectangular strip, take your chocolate mixture and put a strip of it towards the end on each side. This will be the filling.
2. Roll each end towards each other until they meet in the middle and turnover. That's your pain au chocolat!
3. Now to brush with egg yolk top with flaked almonds and it's ready to bake for 15-20 mins until golden.
There you have them! Your mini pastries, home baked and fresh out of the oven. Ready to eat for breakfast, afternoon tea and anywhere in between.