Maple, Apple & Cinnamon Pinwheel Pastries

Last week it was pastry week on Bake Off, and whilst I would love to try making a bakewell tart, I know the kids wouldn't eat it, and I would've ended up eating too much. There was no way I was going to attempt filo pastry, so that left Danish Pastries.

I didn't have enough time for the whole proper Danish pastry dough, so I made my favourite cream cheese pastry, which is very similar to puff pastry, but a lot less work. It worked really well with these pastries, and is great for savoury pies too. It's a lovely light pastry, and these pinwheels were light and crispy.

Apple & Cinnamon Pinwheel Pastries

pastry
150g full fat cream cheese, diced
150g cold butter, diced
250g plain flour
1 tbsp caster sugar

apple filling
3-4 tbps home made apple jam (made with 3 parts peeled apples and 2 parts jam sugar)
tsp cinnamon
caster sugar

icing
3 tbsp icing sugar
maple syrup
water

• Add all the pastry ingredients into a stand mixer bowl
• Using a flat beater, mix all the ingredients together until combined and just starting to come together
• Press the pastry together, wrap in clingfilm & refrigerate for approx 1/2 an hour (do not be tempted to over work the pastry)
• Roll the dough out to the thickness of a one pound coin (I find it easier to roll between sheets of clingfilm instead of flouring the surface)
• cut squares from the dough, in your desired size - mine were approx 3" square as I wanted small pastries
• make 4 cuts on each square of pastry from the corners towards the centre, leaving a gap in the centre for the filling
• mix the jam with the cinnamon and spoon into the centre of each pastry
• fold in 4 of the corners to make a pinwheel
• return to the fridge for half an hour whilst the oven preheats to 200C
• place the pastries onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper
• sprinkle a little caster sugar over each pastry
• bake for approx 15 minutes, until golden and crispy
• once cool, drizzle with icing (I mixed icing sugar with a little water and a little maple syrup until it was drizzling consistency)

I am joining in with the Mummy Mishaps Great Bloggers Bake Off