Lori’s Almond Puff Pastries

My lovely sister Lori came over to my house to share with me her recipe for a spectacular almond puff pastry, hence the name. Such a marvelous little treat.

Let’s begin!

Items needed:
Two sheets of puff pastry(Puff pastries should be kept frozen; take them out of the freezer and place on the counter 15 to 20 minutes before you’re ready to bake)
Almond paste or marzipan(According to Lori, they are pretty much the same except marzipan is just a tad bit sweeter)
One egg
Bittersweet chocolate(for this recipe we used chocolate that was 60% cacao)
Sliced almonds
1 tblspn powdered sugar
Baking sheet
Cutting board
Parchment paper
Pizza cutter
Small knife

Preheat the oven to 375F

Place the almond paste on the cutting board and slice 12 half-inch coins.

After slicing the almond paste, move it to the side.

Unfold the puff pastry, and set it on a lightly-floured cutting board.

With the pizza cutter, cut along the two creases of the pastry sheet.

Then cut diagonals like so…

After cutting the diagonals, separate the pastries as indicated in the above photo.

Mold the cut almond paste to create an oval shape. After doing so, place the almond paste on the largest part of the cut pastry…

Add dark chocolate to each pastry wedge…

Roll the pastry starting from the widest end of the wedge…

Place all of the rolled pastries on to a pan lined with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, add one egg and mix with a fork. Brush each pastry with the egg. Add whatever you would like on top; we put almond slivers on three, and kosher salt on the other three – whatever salt you have is fine, it doesn’t have to be kosher salt.

Bake the pastries for 25 to 30 minutes or until nicely puffed up and golden brown.

And there you have it, Lori’s Almond Puff Pastries! These are best eaten right when they come out of the oven. They’re crispy, flakey, warm delights!

Here is an alternative way to design the almond puff pastry. Set one sheet of the puff pastry on to the cutting board and place the almond paste slices and chocolate down the middle…

Cut the sides as indicated above. Make sure the cuts are slightly downward and that there are the same amount of cuts on each side. You’ll notice that we have eight on one side and seven on the other. It still worked, but try to stick with even amount of cuts on each side.

Take one flap and fold over, alternating as you go…

Just as we did with the previous pastries, brush the top with the egg and sprinkle some sliced almonds on top. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. This one required a little more than the smaller pastries. Place this in the fridge if the oven happens to be occupied by our other pastries.

Here is how it should look when it’s all done!

GROUP PHOTO!!