RECIPE

VALENTINE’S STRAWBERRY PUFF HEARTS

written by @juliarecipes

Are you running late for Valentine’s sweet treats, like me? Don’t worry, I got you covered. Oh let me tell you a little story. I love to bake, most of the time from scratch, but not always. Valentine’s day is around the time of my husband’s and my birthday.  It literally goes like this: My birthday February 9th, my hubby’s February 11th and Valentine’s day February 14th….don’t do the math, it’s really close 🙂

You can imagine, what goes through my head, when month of February is approaching. “What will I bake this year and how much time I have and will I be able to make it within the time frame?” I have literally 1 week to make my cake, my hubby’s cake and Valentine’s sweet treat.

And because I do enjoy making birthday cakes, I always take my time to create beautiful birthday cakes and for Valentine’s day treat, I go more easy.  Last time I made simple strawberries dipped in chocolate and this year I came up with puff pastry hearts filled with strawberry jam.

Simple, easy, few ingredients and very yummy. My daughter like these as a little snack for recess. Puff pastries are always very welcome in my family and for me it is the easiest form of sweet treats to make. That is why I always keep frozen puff pastry in my freezer, in case of emergency.

Puff pastry is best to use when chilled. If you are using frozen one, you might have to taking out of the freezer 2 hours before working with it. Don’t defrost it in microwave or the night before. The dough will loose their capacity to raise and it will becomes mushy and saggy.

I am using already made rolled out puff pastry, so it goes really fast. I always first place all my ingredients close to me on kitchen counter, so I have easy access to them. I preheat oven and I start to roll out the puff pastry from the packaging on floured surface. At this time I am using small heart cookie cut outs (2 inch large), because it’s for Valentines’ day, but you may use any kind of cookie cut outs.

Roll out the dough and cut out as many hearts you are able to cut out. Try to cut out even number of hearts, because we will be using one side of heart, to place the jam on it and the other heart will serve as a cover, so it will be place over the jam. Remove unused dough and place small teaspoon of strawberry jam in the middle of  the heart. Brush the edges of the heart with water  and place the other heart over it, gently pressing on the edges, so the dough get sealed.

With fork, press gently again around the edges of the heart, to seal better. The fork will create nice lines around the edges of the hears, which looks cute. Place the heart on prepared baking sheet with parchment paper and continue to fill the rest of the hearts, until you use all the dough.

Before baking, brush off the heart with the egg wash and bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until the hearts has doubled in size and are golden on the edges. Remove from the oven and let stand for few minutes. Then sift confectioner sugar over the hearts and serve with ice cream or just grab one and enjoy it.

You can store the puff pastry heart in air-tight container, in the refrigerator for up to one week. And here you have the last minute sweet treat for Valentine’s day. Wishing you a beautiful and lovely Valentine’s day.

RECIPE

VALENTINE’S STRAWBERRY PUFF HEARTS

Preparation time: 20 minutes ⭐cooking time: 20-30 minutes⭐ servings: 20 – 24 pieces

 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1pkg puff pastry (454g / 1 pound)
• 1/2 cup strawberry jam
• 1 egg
• confectioner sugar (icing sugar)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven on 180 C / 375F.
2. Roll out puff pastry on floured surface and cut out shapes of heart. Separate the cut out hearts in half and leave aside half of hearts on the side.
3. Place 1/2 tsp of strawberry jam on the first half of hearts, leaving little space on the edges.
4. Brush with luke-warm water around the edges of the heart and place the other half of the heart on top of it, to cover the jam. Seal with your fingers or with fork the edges of the puff pastry. Fork creates cute little lines, so I always first seal it with my fingers and go over it with fork.
5. Bake for 20- 30 minutes or until the edges starts to golden brown and the puff pastry had doubled in size.
6. Remove from oven and sift confectioner sugar over the hearts.
7. You can serve with ice cream or just grab it in your hand and eat it. Enjoy!
8. Store in air-tight container up to 1 week in the refrigerator.

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