Cream Cheese Danish

In my quest for new breakfast ideas, I came across a recipe a cream cheese danish.  I made it.  Everybody liked it (especially my mother-in-law), and it was yummy.  Seemed like it needed a little tweeking to become even yummier, so I looked around for similar recipes.  I pinned another recipe to make Christmas morning since we were spending it with my inlaws.  Horror of all horrors, Pinterest wasn't working Christmas morning, so I had to make it from memory!  (Always a scary thing with my sketchy memory.)  We LOVED how it turned out.

Here's what I did (since I couldn't remember the recipe exactly) . . . I used one package of cream cheese (on purpose - two is too much) as well as cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup in the filling.  The first recipe I made had a cinnamon sugar topping, so I did that . . . Instead of brushing with the egg white, I melted 1/4 cup (or less) of butter and brushed it on top of the uncooked danish.  Then generously sprinkled with cinnamon sugar before baking.    I'll also add that I used Pillsbury's Crescent Sheets.  SO much easier than using the rolls and having to pinch all the seams together!  (Photo from Chocolate Therapy.)

Recipe and photo from The Adventures of Kitchen Girl although the plate in the picture is the same plate I have in my kitchen.

 

Ingredients:
2 cans ready to use refrigerated crescent rolls
2 - 8 ounce packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg white

Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat oven to 350* degrees and grease a 13X9-inch baking pan. Lay a pack of crescent rolls in the pan and pinch the openings together. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and egg together until smooth. Spread the mixture over the crescent rolls evenly and then lay the second pack of crescent rolls on top of the cheese mixture and brush with egg white. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the top is golden brown. Top with glaze after cooling for 20 minutes.

Kitchen Notes:
I have made this danish using low fat cream cheese and splenda (sugar substitute) and it was delicious! Also, the amount of filling the original recipe calls for makes a VERY heavily filled danish. I have halved the filling using 1 package of cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 whole egg, and a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract and it was still very good. If you use the half filling method, bake for closer to 30-35 minutes.