We all have a few guilty pleasures; things we enjoy even though we know they're not good for us.
One of mine is Pillsbury crescent rolls.
I just love 'em. Couldn't really tell you why, but I do.
Fortunately, as guilty pleasures go, crescent rolls are not a particularly expensive indulgence. I often find coupons for them and, when I pair the coupons with sale pricing, I can buy them for less than a dollar a tube. (I tell myself I could scarcely make them from scratch for so little. ;)
A while ago, I picked up four of those alluring blue tubes from the dairy case, and also found cream cheese on sale for a very good price.
I brought my bounty home and then pondered what to make from it. Clearly a visit to Pinterest was in order.
(Don't you just love Pinterest? It's become as much an oracle for me as Google is.)
Pinterest did not fail me. It yielded up many enticing recipes, including a simple cheese danish from The Adventures of a Kitchen Girl.
I love cheese danish! A cheese danish made with crescent rolls was right up my alley.
Because I can't leave a recipe un-messed-around-with, I decided this one needed some fruit and, because I'm big on shopping my pantry, I decided to add in some home canned peach slices.
Oh-my-goodness-the-results-were-amazing! I will definitely be serving this to company sometime soon.
To make Peaches and Cream Crescent Squares, you'll need:
- 2 eight-ounce packages of cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 2 pints of peach slices (or 2 tins, if you don't have home canned)
- 2 tubes of crescent rolls (I used the jumbo ones because there are fewer seams to press closed but the regular ones will work just fine too.)
- 1 egg white
Put the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of your mixer and beat them until well combined. Add in the vanilla extract and egg and continue mixing until the batter is very smooth.
Open one of the tubes of crescent rolls and press the dough into a 9 x 13-inch pan. The dough should come part way up the sides of the pan like this:
Spread the cream cheese mixture over the crescent roll dough.
Drain the peach slices and arrange them on top of the cream cheese mixture.
Open the second tin of crescent rolls and use the dough to make a top crust, pressing it together along the seams and joining the outside edges with the dough used to line the bottom of the pan.
Add a little bit of cold water to the egg white (I used about 1/2 teaspoon) and then beat it with a fork until it becomes frothy.
Brush the egg white over the top crust.
Bake the assembled pastry in a 350F oven for 35 - 45 minutes, until it's golden-brown.
Remove it from the oven and allow it to cool.
When the pastry has cooled, combine
- 1/2 cup icing (powdered) sugar
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
beating until the mixture is very smooth.
Pour the glaze over the cooled pastry in the pan and allow it to set.
I cut the pastry into 12 squares. It's quite rich, though, so you could easily get away with serving smaller portions.
Store any leftover squares in the refrigerator.
Are you on Pinterest? You can find my boards at http://pinterest.com/AuntBsKitchen/
You can find me on Twitter too, at @AuntBsKitchen.
Are you a doodler?
I am.
Whenever I'm still for any period of time and have a piece of paper in front of me, the paper is filled with little geometric patterns, with cartoons, with lettering.
My lecture notes from college were often hard to read because they were so obscured by doodles. The same is now true of my notes taken at office meetings. The pages of our phone book have been embellished again and again during time I've spent waiting "on hold."
I like to colour too, and download printable colouring pages with which to occupy my hands during quiet days at work or evenings in front of the TV.
Do you enjoy colouring?
If you're a doodler or a colourer, this post is for you. It's not my usual sort of thing but, a couple of weeks ago, I was stuck in bed sick with the 'flu and this project grew out of my quiet time.
I came across a post on Pinterest for a printable fortune teller (we called them "cootie catchers" when I was a kid) and thought "Wouldn't it be fun to make one of my own!"
I marked off a square, divided it where the folds would be, and began to doodle. This is what I ended up with. I thought you might enjoy it too.
You can print one to colour yourself if you'd like to. There's a link to a printable PDF below the black and white image.
Once I'd finished drawing my fortune teller, I coloured it in. It looked like this when I was finished:
Here's what it looked like when I'd folded it:
If you'd like to fold yours too, here's how:
First, trim away the thick black edges all the way around, to make an eight inch square.
Fold the square in half.
(Please excuse all the extra creases in my photos. I had to pre-fold my fortune teller to work out the steps before sharing them with you.)
Fold the fold in the other direction so it makes a visible crease down the center of the paper.
Spread the paper flat, with the crease vertically down the center, then fold each side inward so that the edges of the paper rest against the center crease. Crease them sharply against the folds. When you take your hands off the paper, the folds will spring open, looking like this:
Flatten the paper out , turn it 90 degrees, then repeat the folds again, perpendicular to the first set. After the folds are done your paper should be creased into eight 2-inch squares. (I've drawn lines to show you where since they didn't show up well in my picture.)
Turn the paper paper coloured side down and fold the corners back diagonally so that they meet at the center of the paper.
Turn the paper over that the folded parts are underneath. It should look like this:
Write your fortunes into the blank triangles.
Once you've written in your fortunes, fold the corners toward the center again. The numbered part of the paper will cover the center design. Be sure to crease firmly along the folds.
The next fold confused me at first but it's actually very simple. Fold your square vertically into a long rectangle, with the numbers inside and the squares with the colour names on the outside. It will look like this.
Pick the folded paper up with the center fold pointing downward, towards the palm of your hand.
Use your fingers to pinch the diagonal folds near the center of the bottom fold, and the fortune teller will open up.
Place the forefinger and thumb of each hand into one of the pockets formed by the colour name flaps, and play away.
Have fun!
Want to learn more?
If you'd like to learn how to play the fortune teller game, or would like to see more instructions on how to fold one, this link from Dreamworks Animations is very helpful.
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This post is linked to Hearthfelt Hopes blog hop hosted by Aliso Kitchen
