This easy Raspberry Danish recipe combines fresh raspberries, sweetened cream cheese, and flaky puff pastry for a delicious breakfast or dessert.
Danishes made with puff pastry need only 6 ingredients to achieve crispy, buttery, creamy, fruity deliciousness. Once you’ve tried your hand at these raspberry danishes, be sure to check out my Apricot Danish and Cherry Danish with Puff Pastry recipes too.
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Why Make This Recipe
- So easy: 6 ingredients including store-bought puff pastry, and the prep will only take you 15 minutes.
- Flaky perfection: Using puff pastry gives you bakery-quality danishes, with layers of buttery pastry to surround your filling.
- Seasonal: These cream cheese danishes are the perfect way to use in-season raspberries (or whatever other fruits or berries might be in season).
🥗 Ingredients
- Raspberries: Fresh raspberries are lovely with this recipe, but you could replace these with frozen raspberries. Just defrost and pat dry with a paper towel to try to remove some of the moisture. You could also replace with a dollop of raspberry jam.
- Cream Cheese: We usually use Philadelphia brand cream cheese, but you can use whatever brand you like.
- Puff pastry: Homemade puff pastry dough is quite delicious. I highly recommend Cathy Barrow’s quick puff pastry recipe if you have the time to make it. If not though, store-bought puff pastry dough works just fine!
- Powdered Sugar: Did you know that if you don’t have powdered sugar, you can add regular granulated sugar to a blender and blend until you get that powdered texture? It works!
🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
Defrost puff pastry dough and keep in the refrigerator until you are ready to use. Add 4 ounces cream cheese, ⅓ cup powdered sugar, and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract to a medium bowl. Use a mixer to blend until smooth.
Note: taste your raspberries to see how sweet they are. If your raspberries are quite tart, you may want to add more powdered sugar to your cream cheese mixture. In a small bowl, whisk together one egg with a tablespoon of cold water and a pinch of salt.
Remove puff pastry dough from the refrigerator. Sprinkle a little bit of flour over your counter or a large cutting board. Roll out pastry dough into a square, 10.5 inches on all sides and about ⅛-inch thick. As you roll, flip the dough over and add more flour to the board if the dough sticks.
Cut into 9 squares of 3.5 inches x 3.5 inches in size. Place a dollop of cheese mixture (a little less than 1 tablespoon) into the center of each pastry square. This is easy to do with a small cookie scoop.
Top with a few raspberries (about 4), then paint a small amount of egg wash on one corner of the pastry square as you bring it up over the opposite corner and squeeze together to seal.
Put egg wash in the refrigerator for later.
Next, chill the pastries before baking. If you have a sheet pan that will fit in your freezer, line it with parchment paper and carefully place the pastries on it before moving it into the freezer.
If a sheet pan won’t fit, line a plate with parchment paper, and place the pastries on that. Freeze pastries for at least 30 minutes, until they are quite firm. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
After at least 30 minutes in the freezer, place pastries a couple of inches apart on a parchment-paper lined sheet pan (if they are not already on one). Then paint all exposed pastry with egg wash using a pastry brush.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until pastries are cooked through and golden brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar to serve, if you like.
🧐 Recipe FAQs for Raspberry Danishes
Yes! Since you have to freeze the pastries before baking anyway, these are great for make ahead. Chill them on a plate or sheet pan in the freezer until they are quite solid. If you don’t want to bake them right away, move them into a freezer-safe ziplock bag or other container. Freeze for up to 2 months. No need to defrost before baking. Just remove from the freezer and place on a parchment paper-lined sheet pan. Then brush all exposed pastry with egg wash before baking. You may need to add a few minutes of bake time to the recipe.
Since these raspberry danishes have a cream cheese filling, store them in the refrigerator. They will last 3-4 days in the fridge. Or, you can put them in a freezer-safe container and freeze for up to 2 months. For best results, reheat pastries in a 375-degree oven when you’re ready to serve.
A Danish pastry, or just Danish for short, is a sweet pastry that originated with Austrian bakers but became famous in Danish preparations. Traditional Danish dough uses yeast for leavening and includes flour, butter, milk, eggs, and sugar. Like puff pastry dough, the danish dough is rolled out, covered with butter, and then folded again and again. Danish pastries can be topped with fruit, chocolate, icing or nuts. Typical stuffings include jam, custard, dried or fresh fruit, and nuts. In the U.S., they often appear with sweet cream cheese and fruit on top.
👩🍳 Expert Tips
Working with puff pastry dough is the hardest part of this recipe. First, you need to defrost it. Defrosting the dough in the refrigerator is recommended, but if you need to defrost puff pastry dough in a hurry, you can leave it out at room temperature. Turn it over at least once, and check every 5-10 minutes to see whether it is ready. The dough should still be cold, but pliable. Next, you need to work quickly because once the dough warms up, it is difficult to work with and won’t keep its shape. If the dough becomes too soft, put it back into the refrigerator to firm up.
Don’t worry if the edges of your puff pastry raspberry turnovers become unsealed during baking—the point is just to make sure the filling stays inside as the pastries bake. Raspberries can burst a little as well. If they come out of the filling, just pop them back over the cream cheese before serving.
Ready to try more flavor combinations? Raspberries work so well with other ingredients, and you can add lots of different flavors to your puff pastry raspberry turnovers. Add blueberries, blackberries, or apple chunks to the filling or try adding lemon zest and a little juice to the cream cheese to make a lemon raspberry danish.
Looking for more ideas for fresh raspberries? We love to use them to top Greek yogurt along with our Almond, Pecan, and Pumpkin Seed Granola. Raspberries also make a delicious parfait filling—just replace the strawberries in this Strawberry Parfait with Mascarpone Cream recipe or the mangoes in this Mango Coconut Yogurt Parfait.
You can also freeze them to use later in a smoothie. And try them in a baked crumble or crisp recipe, either by themselves or mixed with another fruit or berry—see this Peach Blueberry Crisp recipe for inspiration. You can even use them as a delicious pie filling like in this Raspberry Pie. Or make a fresh Raspberry Sorbet.
Other Puff Pastry Recipes
Got an extra sheet of puff pastry from the box you used for this raspberry cheese danish recipe? Puff pastry is fantastic for both sweet and savory recipes. Why not use it to make another one of our favorite puff pastry recipes:
If you try this easy Raspberry Danish recipe, we would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to us.
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Raspberry Danish
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed and refrigerated
- 5 ounces fresh raspberries
- 4 ounces cream cheese softened
- ⅓ cup powdered sugar plus extra to garnish
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg for egg wash
- Flour for sprinkling on cutting board
Instructions
- Add the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract to a medium bowl.
- Use a mixer to blend until smooth. Note: taste your raspberries to see how sweet they are. If your raspberries are quite tart, you may want to add more powdered sugar to your cream cheese mixture.
- In a small bowl, whisk together one egg with a tablespoon of cold water and a pinch of salt.
- Remove puff pastry dough from the refrigerator.
- Sprinkle a little bit of flour over your counter or a large cutting board.
- Roll out pastry dough into a square, 10.5 inches on all sides. As you roll, flip the dough over and add more flour to the board if your dough is sticking at all. Dough should be about ⅛-inch thick when done.
- Cut into 9 squares of 3.5 inches x 3.5 inches in size.
- Place a dollop of cheese mixture (a little less than 1 tablespoon) into the center of each pastry square.
- Top with a few raspberries (about 4), then paint a small amount of egg wash on one corner of the pastry square as you bring it up over the opposite corner and squeeze together to seal.
- Put egg wash in the refrigerator for later.
- To chill the pastries before baking, line a small sheet pan with parchment paper and carefully place the pastries on it before moving it into the freezer. If a sheet pan won’t fit, line a plate with parchment paper, and place the pastries on that.
- Freeze pastries for at least 30 minutes, until they are quite firm.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- After at least 30 minutes in the freezer, place pastries a couple of inches apart on a parchment-paper lined sheet pan (if they are not already on one).
- Paint all exposed pastry with egg wash using a pastry brush.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, until pastries are cooked through and golden brown.
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar to serve, if you like.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Instagram Users: Now that you've made this Raspberry Cream Cheese Danish recipe, tag me @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because I'd love to see your results!
More About Molly
Cooking healthy(ish) meals with seasonal ingredients is my passion. Trained as a French pastry chef, I spent over 10 years as a personal chef. Here you'll find well-tested recipes that you and your family will love!
Katherine says
It was very easy and simple to bake, love your video!.
Molly Pisula says
Thank you! And thank you so much for letting me know.
Lynne Riffenburgh says
I think you must mean cups of powdered sugar…
Molly Pisula says
Oh gosh no, definitely not that much. It's less than a 1/4 cup that you need. I will measure exactly and add in a tablespoons measurement to make it easier! (Sorry, it is the pastry chef in me who is used to just weighing everything!)
Nicole M Krause says
Looks really yummy! Why freezing for 30 minutes? Cannot just popped them in the oven?
Molly Pisula says
You can just pop them in the oven, but freezing allows the butter in the dough to get really cold again--this means you will get a better puff when the very cold dough hits the hot oven and the butter melts.
LJ says
What is the purpose of freezing them before baking?
Molly Pisula says
Freezing them firms up the puff pastry dough so that the butter gets really cold again. Then, when you put it in the hot oven, the butter melts more slowly and you get a much better rise on your pastry (will be puffier puff pastry!).
Judy says
Made for Easter brunch with blueberries. Might make alittle smaller for “ bite size “ very easy to make and and will do it again
Robert Windred says
made th3 raspberry ones plus blueberry as well. I don't like real sweet deserts but these were just perfect with a litte cream.
Molly Pisula says
I bet the blueberry ones were lovely too. Thanks so much for commenting!
Peggy J Glasgow says
I can't wait to try the recipes you will be sending me each week. I know they will be deficious. Thanks for offer them to me.!
Molly Pisula says
You're very welcome! Enjoy, and thank you for commenting!
Grace says
Do they have to be refrigerated or would an air tight container work on the counter ??
Molly Pisula says
I would refrigerate them--the cheese filling really shouldn't be left out on the counter. They revive pretty well with an air fryer or toaster oven though, even if refrigerated.
Diane says
I made these for the first time for Christmas morning 2023. They were delicious! I'm glad I have some left in freezer. Rather than rolling out the entire sheet of puff pastry at once, since it was already folded into three sections prior to taking it out of the box, I unfolded it and cut it into three sections and then rolled out each section and cut into three squares. I found it much easier that way. I followed the rest of the recipe as written. This recipe is a keeper!
Molly Pisula says
Hi Diane! I love that tip! I often use the puff pastry with the three folds as well--great idea to cut it apart and roll out each section.
Matej @ CookWeWill says
I have some raspberries in the freezer that I saved from the summer... now I know how to put them to good use! I'm sure my kids will love this 🙂
Relle says
I'm a sucker for baked goods. Can't wait to try these.
Ksenia says
I just made these for the kiddos’ breakfast, and it was a huge hit!
Chef Molly says
So glad you enjoyed! Such a tasty breakfast!
Kris says
These were way easier than I thought they were going to be and they turned out so stunning! I plan on making them for our guests over the holidays. Thanks for another winner!
Gen says
What a delightful recipe! I made these while family was visiting this past weekend and everyone devoured them. Thank you!
Shelby says
The filling in these danishes is so refreshing! And the fact that i can freeze them makes it so simple to have them on hand, thank you!
Chef Molly says
I have a bunch in my freezer right now, and can't wait to pull them out when I need a little pick-me-up!