Delicious Danish Pastries a 4 Year Old Can Bake

Recently I made blueberry lemon danishes and posted the recipe on my cookery blog, My Kitchen Notebook. They were  big hit with The Bavarian, but since the boys don't like lemon they turned up their noses at them. I was sure that if I changed the flavouring they would love them. So I did, and it turns out I was right. They might as well have inhaled them, they were gone so quickly. It also helped that it was Number Two rather than me who did the baking. It is often said but quite true that when children make something themselves, they are more likely to eat it. 

Number Two was home from Kindergarten for lunch and I was planning to get him to help me bake. In the end though he made them completely on his own. I only had to do the dangerous bits (sharp knives, oven, etc.). From start to finish it took us just over half an hour, including 20 minutes baking time. 

So here's the recipe:

150g cream cheese
3 dsps icing sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tin of croissant pasty (ours was 250g and usually makes 6 croissants)
50g dark cholcolate, cut into small chunks
25g flaked almonds
An extra 50g icing sugar for the icing

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (fan). Combine the cream cheese, icing sugar and cinnamon and beat with a spoon until smooth. 

2. Open the can of croissants and unroll the pastry onto the work surface. Number Two was speechless when the pastry burst out of the tin as he pulled the wrapper off. 

3. Pinch the perforated edges together to close up all the holes and prevent the filling leaking out.

4. Spread with the cream cheese mixture, making sure to spread it right out to the edges. Then sprinkle it with the chocolate chunks and the nuts.

5. Roll up the pastry loosely like a swiss roll. Then cut into slices about 2cm thick. Our roll made eight slices. Lay the slices into a greased tin, leaving some space between them for the pastry to expand as it bakes.

6. Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes.

7. While the danishes are in the oven, mix a thick white icing with lemon juice or water and 50g icing sugar.

8. When the danishes are finished, remove them from the oven but leave in the tin. Drizzle with the icing immediately. Leave to cool for at least 15 minutes before eating. 

Child's play!