Havarti-Fig Butter Pastries Drizzled w. Honey

I love sweet and savory flavors combined. When I was younger, my dad would make us banana, chocolate and pita bread sandwiches for dessert and I remember having crushed pretzels with my ice cream on more than one occasion. They were both delicious treats and a fun way to scrounge up something sweet when in reality, there was nothing in the cupboard that would ever be deemed dessert-worthy. We never got into maple bacon ice cream, bacon on cupcakes, or sweet bacon anything and I’m pretty sure you can see a visible shudder on my mom and dad’s faces when you mention bacon in anything but eggs.
Today’s sweet and savory recipe combines aged havarti with fig butter, all wrapped in puff pastry. And if you aren’t drooling yet, I topped them with two of my all-time favorite things: pistachios and honey. I wasn’t sure how I felt about fig butter in this dessert but after trying both, A and I decided that fig butter perfectly finishes this pastry.




HAVARTI-FIG BUTTER PASTRIES DRIZZLED WITH HONEY
Yield: 9 pastries
INGREDIENTS
1 sheet puff pastry (cut into 9 even squares)
3/4 cup Aged Havarti cheese, shredded
3 T mascarpone cheese
3 T fig butter
egg wash: 1 egg + 1 tsp water
2 T ground pistachios
Honey, to taste
DIRECTIONS
Arrange each puff pastry square in a row. Combine havarti and mascarpone cheeses in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of cheese mixture to the middle of each pastry square and top each mound of cheese with 1 teaspoon of fig butter. Pinch together opposite corners of squares and form a wonton-style pastry (Pinch together the top right corner with the bottom left corner and then pinch the top left corner with the bottom right corner). Using a pastry brush, brush each pastry with the egg wash and then sprinkle with ground pistachios.
Bake in preheated 400F oven for 20-23 minutes or until pastries reach a dark golden color. Drizzle with honey and top with more pistachios if desired.

