Cherry and Cream Cheese Turnovers with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze

Glazed Puff Pastry Cherry Turnovers — These cherry turnovers are so good that people will think you bought them from a local bakery, but they’re so easy, ready in 20 minutes, and you’ll never need to settle for store-bought turnovers again.

Easy Cherry Turnovers with Puff Pastry

These turnovers are so good that people will think you bought them from a local bakery. Except they’re super easy and ready in 20 minutes.

These are the best cherry turnovers I’ve ever had and you can pretend you slaved over them if you think it will bring you and that new purse or pair of shoes you have your eye on one step closer to being a done deal.

With just three key ingredients, you’ll never need to settle for store-bought again and can have warm, fresh, and homemade in minutes. Talk about a breakfast worth waking up for!

They’re what you’d get if you crossed a cherry turnover with a cream cheese danish, and we inhaled them in minutes. The batch size makes just four turnovers for built-in portion control.

They’d be great for brunch or special events where you want to impress your guests, but don’t want to make anything too fussy. Just double, triple, etc. the recipe as necessary.

I made them using one sheet of puff pastry, one of the best kitchen shortcuts ever.

Ingredients for Puff Pastry Cherry Turnovers

To make this easy cherry turnover recipe, you’ll need: 

• Puff pastry
• Cream cheese
• Cherry preserves or jam 
• Egg
• Turbinado sugar
• Confectioners’ sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Cream or milk

How to Make Puff Pastry Cherry Turnovers 

The pastry is light, flaky, tender, and slightly chewy. Biting into the sweet, plump, oven-warmed cherries, with bursts of cream cheese from the filling and glaze peeking through, makes everything in the world just stop while I savor that perfect bite.

The slight tang from the simple cream cheese glaze drizzled on perfectly offsets the sweetness from the jam, and it also helps to bring out the cream cheese in the filling.

Here’s how to make cherry turnovers with puff pastry: 

1. Thaw the puff pastry and slice it into 4 smaller squares using a pizza wheel.
2. In the center of each square, add the cream cheese. I used about 1/2 tablespoon lite cream cheese for each, although you can use a bit more if you’re partial to it.
3. Top each with 2 tablespoons chunky preserves or jam. If you have homemade, or another flavor you enjoy like strawberry, peach, or blueberry, go for it.
4. Fold the squares diagonally to create a triangle, and crimp to seal with a fork, going up and back with the fork on all seams a few times. Cherry juice that leaks on the baking sheet is prone to burning quickly.
5. Brush with a lightly beaten egg to help encourage the turnovers to turn golden brown in the oven.
6. Before baking, sprinkle generously with turbinado sugar or coarse sugar. I love chunky sugar granules on muffin tops and on pastries of any kind. It lends a subtle crunchy texture for authenticity, while also providing an extra pop of sweetness, and some light caramelizing, although you may omit.

There’s a reason we scarfed these in minutes. Seriously the best turnovers I’ve ever had and way too easy! 

Recipe Variations to Try

This is a super simple recipe for cherry turnovers, but there are a few elements you can tweak as desired. 

• Cherry preserves: May be substituted with another fruit preserve. 
• Puff pastry: Use regular or gluten-free as needed. 
• Cream cheese: Lite or regular will work so long as you use brick-style cream cheese. 
• Glaze: Can be omitted, if desired. 

Tips for the Best Puff Pastry Cherry Turnovers

Work quickly: Try to work through the recipe quickly so the pastry stays chilled because it will puff better in the oven. It’s like working with chilled pie dough that yields a better tasting crust when the dough stays cold.

Glaze: It’s not necessary to glaze the cherry cream cheese turnovers, but glaze or frosting of any kind is never optional for me. You could also try Nutella, peanut butter-maple syrup, or salted caramel.

Storage: These puff pastry turnovers are best warm and fresh from the oven, but leftovers keep up to 4 days at room temp. You may refrigerated if you’re uncomfortable storing cream cheese treats at room temp, but I personally don’t do so. 

Save Saved Review Print

4.25 from 4 votes

Puff Pastry Cherry Turnovers

By Averie Sunshine

These cherry turnovers are so good that people will think you bought them from a local bakery, but they’re so easy, ready in 20 minutes, and you’ll never need to settle for store-bought turnovers again.

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 19 minutes minutes

Additional Time: 1 minute minute

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 4

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Ingredients  

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Turnovers

• ▢ 1 sheet puff pastry
• ▢ about 2 tablespoons softened cream cheese, divided (lite okay; I used 1/2 tablespoon for each danish)
• ▢ about 8 tablespoons cherry preserves or jam, divided (or your favorite flavor; I used 2 tablespoons for each danish)
• ▢ 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• ▢ about 8 teaspoons turbinado or coarse sugar for sprinkling, divided

Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze

• ▢ 2 tablespoons softened cream cheese, (lite okay)
• ▢ ¾ cup confectioners’ sugar, or as necessary to achieve desired glaze consistency
• ▢ ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ splash cream or milk, as necessary to achieve desired glaze consistency

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Instructions 

Turnovers:

• Try to work quickly through the recipe because chilled puff pastry puffs better when baked (like chilled pie dough), and the less you handle it, the better. Preheat oven to 400F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat or spray with cooking spray; set aside.
• On a clean counter or work surface, unroll puff pastry and slice with a pizza cutter into four, evenly-sized squares.
• In the center of each square, add the cream cheese, spreading it out just slightly with a table knife.
• On top of the cream cheese, add the preserves, spreading it out just slightly with the knife.
• Fold each square in half diagonally to create triangles.
• Seal all edges with a fork by crimping them. Make sure to crimp very well, going up and back over the seams a few times because if preserves leak while baking, it burns quickly.
• Crack the egg in a small bowl and beat it lightly with a fork (crimping fork is okay).
• Evenly brush all the turnovers with the eggwash; discard remainder.
• Evenly and generously sprinkle the tops of all the turnovers with turbinado sugar.
• Bake for about 15 to 19 minutes, or until puffed, lightly golden, and pastry looks done and set. Allow turnovers to cool on baking tray for 5 to 10 minutes before moving. While turnovers bake, make the glaze.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze

• In a small bowl, combine all ingredients except the cream and whisk until smooth and combined.
• As necessary, whisk in cream until desired glazed consistency is reached. If you accidentally add too much, add a bit more sugar.
• Evenly drizzle glaze over the turnovers noting that if the turnovers are still quite warm, the glaze will melt into them. Serve immediately.

Notes

Turnovers are best warm and fresh, but will keep airtight for up to 4 days.

Nutrition

Serving: 1, Calories: 413kcal, Carbohydrates: 79g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 8g, Saturated Fat: 5g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g, Cholesterol: 69mg, Sodium: 111mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 66g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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