Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Easy-As-Can-Be Cheese Danish

I have been a baking lunatic lately! First I went on a cupcake craze, then I got sick of making frostings and went through a muffin phase, and now I am graduating to the world of vegan pastries. My friend Jose has developed an obsession with the cheese danishes from Porto's Bakery in Burbank and so I made it my mission to create a comparably tasty vegan version.

Today I used this recipe from the Compassionate Action for Animals website. I didn't want to go to the trouble of making my own pastry dough unless I knew I'd be able to make a decent tasting cheesy filling first. So this recipe was perfect because it just calls for a couple tubes of Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough (which is vegan). This turned out to be a great recipe, although it could have been written a bit better. For starters, the size of the cream cheese tub isn't listed--you need 8 ounces.

Instead of laying one whole tube of crescent roll dough on top of another, I chose to cut each tube of dough into 4 long rectangles. Then after I put the filling on, I simply folded the rectangle in half and pinched the edges together. Make sure you really pinch the perforations together very well because they will definitely split right open during baking.
Next time I won't bother with the teaspoon of vegan sour cream. It is such a minimal amount and it really adds nothing. Unfortunately now I have a giant tub of sour cream which I never liked, even in my omni days. Does anyone have any good recipes that will use up some of it?

The proportions of the ingredients in the icing part of the recipe are totally wonky. I had to add way more soy milk than the tablespoon that is listed. I just kept pouring in more, little by little, until I had the right runny consistency.
In the end, I was extremely pleased with the cheese filling. I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't think it tasted exactly like the real thing. When I make these again, I will definitely be making my own pastry dough. The Pillsbury stuff tastes fine but it tastes like crescent rolls and not like the delicious puff pastry that makes danishes so damn good! So will these suckers be able to compete with Porto's? I think they are definitely going to give them a run for their money--I'll let you know what Jose's verdict is.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, these look AMAZING. i actually have a few rolls of pillsbury crescent in my fridge now. i keep them around to make crescent rolls with tofu hot dogs, but if you don't use them soon enough...they EXPLODE. mine are about to go off, so i'm very happy you posted this!

i may make this for one of my holiday get-togethers.

looks extremely tasty.

Lisa (Show Me Vegan) said...

these look really professional! as someone who has NOT mastered baking, I'm all for the crescent roll help.

tofufreak said...

mmm... yum!!!

these look incredibly amazing!!!!

Jenn Shagrin said...

Porto's is crazy! I walked in with a friend of mine once, was completely overwhelmed, and walked right back outside. I didn't think there was anything I could eat at a Cuban deli...but I probably should have investigated.
La Victoire is indeed amazing! Oddly enough, I was the only one in the whole restaurant, so it was quite an experience. The Bio Coops in Paris were so rad, too. Bought the best mustard I've ever had in my life there.

DJ said...

OOOOoooohh... those look soooo good!!

Anonymous said...

Ooooh, who needs Pillsbury's Toaster Struedels?! These look great.