Goat Cheese and Honey Puff Pastry Dessert Bites

Creamy goat cheese and honey puff pastry dessert bites is smothered puff pastry drizzled with honey and layered with crunchy nuts. These twists are light, flakey in texture, delicate in satisfaction. I enjoy these with a cup of tea or coffee early mornings or late afternoon into the evenings. Goat cheese and honey dessert bites is the perfect sweet and savory combination wrapped in a warm, light, buttery flakey puff pastry dough that is easy to roll and simple to twist.

About the dessert

This puff pastry recipes is hardly a recipe, but it is a method. There is a bit of preparation for these snack sticks starting out with defrosting your dough for 20 minutes along with your goat cheese log. Then, you roll the dough between two sheet of parchment paper for easy clean up. After, you lather on the goat cheese and drizzle on the honey. The softened cheese makes it easier to spread. Lastly, top with the delicate honey crystals and crunchy pecans or walnuts and bake 20 minutes. Easy, right?

The Puff Pastry Dough.

Puff pastry is a dough that is commonly used around the world, granting, the French were the first to perfect this dough. It’s made up of flour, butter, and salt, but it still rises without any leavening agents. It rises with steam! This thin layered puff pastry consists of many alternating layers of dough. There is a science to the dough starting with the flour you use. Pastry flour is very different than other flours when mixed with wet ingredients because of its high protein content. Sometimes, when mixed with wet ingredients it helps form a strong paste which can stand up to the heat to form flakey layers. Alternatively, to ignore the fuss I just buy puff pastry from the frozen dessert section of my grocery store.

Your Cheese Filling

Goat cheese is my current obsession! If I could pick one cheese for life, goat cheese would be my partner in crime. In the event you are in a time crunch, use whatever cheese you have on hand. Impressively, ricotta cheese is a great choice and easy to spread, as well as brie cheese which by nature easily melts when heated. This is all relative to your taste in cheese. I am here just for the suggestions! Goat cheese and honey is satisfactory for a sweet and savory combination. Any cheese you choose to add to your puff pastry the honey will compliment nicely for your dessert bits.

Substitutions for honey

Maple syrup is the number on substitution! Known for it’s sweet taste it actually comes from a tree! Mother Earth has gifted us with pure maple syrup that can be pricey but yields some of the most tasty recipes. In all honesty, I use this more than pancake syrup. You can buy it in bulk at your local Costco or purchase online on Amazon for a time saver. Stick to sugar and maybe add a touch of cinnamon.

What are honey crystals?

Crystalized honey! I first opened up my package a couple years ago from Civilized Coffee to find these gems. This product is a specialty product that helps enhance a honey flavor without the gooey mess. I add honey crystals to my coffee, ice cream, oatmeal, and perhaps everything else. What crystals do in this recipe is add a sweet honey component without adding too much honey. It works wonders in recipes that involve honey like my kid approved Honey Roasted Vegetables you can easily add to help decrease the sugar levels. For these honey goat cheese twists, the honey can ooze out of the side and caramelize too much that it almost tastes burnt. To prevent that, you add the honey crystals in the filling to avoid incorporating too much liquid. If honey is not an option, these crystals have been known to save the day!