Fig and Feta puff pastries are a delicious appetizer for any party. These little beauties are so easy to make and even easier to eat. They are sweet and salty with a delightful crunch of puff pastry layers. They are supposed to look rustic, so there is no need to be neat.
For Christmas Eve this year, I was asked to make an appetizer. I have loved Trader Joe’s frozen puff pastries with caramelized onions and feta and thought, what if I used fig jam instead to make them on my own. This recipe is the result. These are so good and surprisingly easy to make. As long as you have some frozen puff pastry in your fridge, you only need to thaw it and barely roll it out. Then, cut them into rectangles and press them into mini muffin cups. The secret is to not press the pastry down as you push them into the cups to keep those many layers of puff pastry. If you can find an all-butter version, this is the perfect one to use. Trader Joe’s has an all-butter puff pastry that worked fantastically here. They bake up all crunchy and beautiful.
You will need two mini muffin pans to make these fig and feta puff pastries. You can find them on Amazon here or at many gourmet cooking stores. Even Target has them. Find a good feta that is nice and salty to balance out the sweetness of the fig jam. (You could use apricot too!) They literally took me 10 minutes to put together, which is shorter than preheating the oven. But you can also make them ahead and pull them out of the fridge or even the freezer when ready to bake them.
I hope you all had a great holiday and will have a fantastic New Year! Please think of others in your choices. We all must work together to overcome these crazy times and embrace our differences and shared thoughts. Ok, that is all for this week. Until next time!
- 6 oz feta cheese
- 1.1 lbs. 17.6 oz package of puff pastry thawed
- ½ cup fig preserves or jam
-
Preheat the oven to 400° if baking right away.
-
Crumble the feta cheese and set aside.
-
Gently roll out one sheet of puff pastry to an 11 inch square. Then cut the square into 24 rectangles by dividing it into 4 squares, 5 ½ inches each and each square into six rectangles. They don't have to be exact, as you will be stretching them a bit.
-
Take each rectangle and stretch them into a square, pressing them into the mini muffin cups as you go. Be careful not to squeeze the pastry too much, as you still want to keep the many layers of the pastry.
-
Into each pasty-lined cup, spoon about ½ teaspoon of the fig jam.
-
Top each jam-filled cup with some crumbled feta cheese, dividing it evenly.
-
Bake each tray for 15-18 minutes or until the pastries are puffed up and golden. Do not overbake.
-
Serve immediately.
The pastries can be assembled and kept in the fridge until you need to bake them or even frozen for a week or two.
