This recipe is a guilty pleasure – it has zero redeeming qualities – it’s not heart-healthy, vegan*, gourmet, or even mostly “from scratch”.
However, it is very tasty. Tasty enough that each year Keitel’s coworkers insist that I make several for their holiday work party, and they usually sneak a few slices to take home to their wives and kids. Tasty enough that Keitel’s boss asks me to make one just for him to take home.
I don’t want to oversell this recipe, but it is easy, tastes good, and looks like you worked at it.
- 1 11.5 Oz Bag Milk Chocolate or Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bits
- 1 Sheet Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Frozen Sheets Pastry Dough
- 1 Cup Crushed Walnuts
- 2 Tablespoons Half & Half, Milk, or Cream
- 1 Tablespoon Butter
- 1 Egg with 1 tablespoon Water
Flour your board or counter, roll out 1 sheet dough to around 12” by 16” rectangle. Don’t worry about being exact. Since the package has two sheets in it, I usually make two of these at a time.
Melt chocolate bits, butter, and half & half in microwave (stir at 20 seconds; give it another 15 seconds and stir again. You want it to stir up smooth and creamy – too little time and the bits are lumpy; too much time and the chocolate granulates/burns.
Spread over pastry sheet to within about a 1.2 inch of edges. Sprinkle on all but maybe an 1/8 cup of the walnuts.
Roll it up by the short side and pinch the open ends together. Beat the egg and water together, paint on the roll. If you have an actual pastry brush, you win! If you are like me, you just sop it on with a paper towel. This will give you a pretty, shiny bakery finish. While still wet with the egg wash, sprinkle the remaining walnuts, or use sparkly colored sugar. Make shallow slice-sized cuts across the top.
Bake at 375 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.
*Vegan friends – the puff pastry sheets are actually vegan, and although I’ve never tried it, I bet that you could substitute coconut milk for the half & half, oil for the butter, and sweetened carob chips for the chocolate. And omit the egg wash. I’d love to hear if it works!
And, instead of chocolate, I’ve also substituted frozen cherries (defrosted) or apple pie filling (don’t use all the “sauce” with canned filling, it gets too wet).
hmmmm…i’ve never baked before.
Life goals.
a mission!
Get in my belly now!
When sliced is it similar to a cookie or more like a confection? I’m not fond of walnuts but I could use pecans.
Pecans are excellent in this. I would say a confection.
Now I’m thinking of all the things I could put in this, like dried cherries or candied orange peel.
Yes, yes, yes!
Dried cherries and candied orange peel sound wonderful. Maybe cranberry, pistachio,and some drizzled white chocolate?
Oooh, cranberries and pistachio!
Puff pastry is great stuff. For a super easy dessert you can cut a sheet into squares in some dimension that makes sense — if it is 6×9, maybe 3 inch squares. Or rectangles or triangles, whatever.
Put on a cookie sheet and bake according to the directions on the package. Or like 375F for about 15 minutes? Until they’re crispy brown.
Let them cool a bit and while they are still warm spread Nutella or jam or your favorite frosting on half of the squares and then stick the other halves on top to make sandwiches. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if you want to look extra fancy. People will think you are a kitchen god(dess).
Mmmmm. Another old school trick. Prick with a fork instead of cutting, as a guide for cutting later. Paint with unsalted butter, sprinkle on white sugar and cinnamon. Bake till it crisps on top.
My wife just started getting into baking. One of her go-to recipes for the holiday – take 2 puff pastry, sheets, spread Nutella between them, cut it into a triangle, then cut slits down the long angled sides of the triangle. Twist each fringe. Bake. Voilà! Christmas tree made of Nutella and pastry, topped with confectioner’s sugar.
…when I was young my gran used to have a thing that looked like a wooden scale model of a pizza cutter with a serrated edge that you could wheel up & down a sheet of pastry to produce a perforated line you could tear by hand or erase with a rolling pin if you wanted it to turn out different?
…my kitchen you’d quite possibly have to improvise the rolling pin out of a wine bottle so it’s safe to say I don’t have an example on hand to snap a picture of & I too would be using a fork for that but now that I remember the thing it was pretty neat?
That sounds like an amazing tool. Go Gran! In my family the cinnamon sugar butter above was a way to use up leftover pie dough.
My grandmother had one too. It’s called a pastry wheel.
…maybe it’s a gran thing…old ladies know things…but I probably ought to have been able to work out the name instead of just giving a vague description of the thing…so thank you for that
i promised Elliecoo i’d attempt (and i don’t use that word lightly) to make the vegan version so any suggestions from anyone interested in the end result (providing i don’t accidentally burn my house down) will not be ignored.
Now this I would eat. It sounds even better if I switch out the nuts for slivered almonds.
I now have a plan for the weekend.