Blackberry Puff Cream Dessert

All my friends from this area know all too well how wonderful the wild mountain blackberries from above Springville taste when freshly picked.  Unfortunately, the fabulous, juicy blackberries I am referring to ripen in the heat of summer.  Ummm, it's a brisk 37 degrees today.  A far cry from the balmy upper 90's or 100's of summer when this bounty comes to maturity.  OK, OK, enough babbling about the berries.  Even when it's cold and damp out I can get great berries thanks to hot houses and imports.  Tonight was round two for this one.  I neglected to post my first attempt at the Blackberry Puff Cream due to the fact my pastry didn't puff the way I wanted it to, and consequently I became enraged at myself, my lack of baking prowess and basically everything else I could conjure up to be enraged about.  Needless to say the first attempt went straight into the garbage bin.  This time the baking gods decided to show mercy and the creation was truly a feat of blissful delight.  Here's how it went.

My Ingredients:
1 10oz package of frozen puff pastry shells
4 oz Phillly Cream Cheese
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1/8 cup milk or half and half
3 pks turbinado sugar (Sugar In The Raw)
10 oz fresh blackberries (frozen will work too)

NOTE:  The first time I tried this one I made puff pastry from scratch using a French recipe I found.  Well, long story short, I obviously and not a French baker and totally goofed that.  I didn't add enough butter and didn't roll it out thin enough and the recipe ended in a disaster.  I have not given up the ship however and plan on tackling the puff pastry again in the future and will blog it here.

My Method for 6 Desserts:

Preheat oven to 385 degrees.....yes, 385

Sparingly grease a cookie sheet.  I prefer to line mine with foil and thinly butter it.
In a small mixing bowl add the sugar, cream cheese and cinnamon then whisk or beat with an electric hand mixer until you have a nice creamy texture (about 2 minutes, remembering to scrape the sides of the bowl).  Now with a rubber spatula, fold your mixture over several times to ensure all ingredients are well blended).  Set your bowl aside.

Place your puff pastry on the cookie sheet and brush a thin coat of milk or half and half over the top of each one.  If you use the Pepperidge Farms frozen brand as I did this time make sure to place them cut side up.  When the pastry is brushed sprinkle on a nice light coating of turbinado sugar over each one.  I found some of this sugar at a local Starbuck's.  I used 3 packs for this job.  When the sugar has been sprinkled over the pastry place the cookie sheet into the oven on a middle high rack.  Cook these for about 15 minutes, until nice and golden brown, ensuring the puff pastry has fully cooked.  When cooked, remove from the oven and lift the tops of the pastry off of each pastry, set the tops aside on your sheet.

With the tops of each pastry removed spoon in about 2-3 tsp of your cream cheese mixture and about 6 or 7 blackberries on top of the cream cheese.  Then replace each pastry top, over the berries.  Place back in the oven for about 6 minutes or so, giving the cream cheese time to warm nicely and pastry top enough time to crisp and brown a bit more.  Remove from the oven and plate.

YUMMY!!!