Bring the aromas of your favorite bakery home with our pastry recipes. If you're a beginner, don't be intimidated. Pastry dishes always start with a dough consisting of flour, water, and solid fat (which can be shortening, butter, or lard). Some common examples include pies, tarts, donuts, croissants, Danishes, and scones. Here's a handful of our favorite recipes, including some easy shortcuts, such as frozen puff pastry or refrigerated piecrust.
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Blueberry-Cream Cheese Pastries
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Attention blueberry-lovers: These flaky breakfast pastries are full of your favorite bite-size berries. Give them a spread made with cream cheese, vanilla, and lemon juice for a sweet-tart kickoff to the day.
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Potato Cinnamon Rolls
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We're letting you in on the secret ingredient to the most fluffy, delicious cinnamon rolls you'll ever taste—potatoes. That's right, this top-rated recipe from our Test Kitchen uses mashed potatoes to achieve the ultimate soft, pillowy rolls you know and love.
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Apple-Cheese Danish
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Layers of light and flaky puff pastry sheets, spiced apple slices, and cream cheese fill this Danish pastry recipe. Save yourself some prep time and skip a step by substituting canned apple pie filling for the spiced apples.
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Almond and Vanilla Bean Scones
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These rich, moist scones get their incredible flavor from almond extract and vanilla-bean paste. To ease cutting the pastry dough, cover it with plastic wrap and freeze for 20 minutes before slicing. You can also freeze the dough up to two months for delicious homemade pastries at a moment's notice.
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Cream Cheese Danishes
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The key to creating a flaky pastry, like this classic Danish, is all about the puff pastry. Luckily, the frozen version at your grocery store is delicious, and definitely worth buying as a shortcut. Top this easy breakfast recipe with your favorite fruit preserves.
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Lavender-Honey Lemon Tart
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This delicious pastry recipe is a showstopping brunch treat or dessert that only looks complicated. It takes a mere 10 minutes of hands-on time to get this sweet and tangy tart together. The candied lemons are also easy to make and are an impressive topper.
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Chocolate Cannoli
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Make easy work of these sweet pastries—a plastic bag quickly pipes a homemade chocolate filling into purchased cannoli shells. Look for the shells at Italian grocery stores and larger supermarkets.
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Strawberry-Cardamom Turnovers
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Here our homemade strawberry jam is infused with cardamom for a zesty take. Stuffed inside a flaky pastry and drizzled with powdered sugar icing, this is a breakfast recipe that's sweet enough for dessert.
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Rustic Blood Orange Tart with Salted Pecan Crust
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Add some nutty flavor to your dough with toasted pecans. Blood oranges make a tangy filling and beautiful presentation. Just remove the white pith from the citrus, as it tends to have a bitter taste.
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Stuffed Churro Puffs
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Some flavors were just meant to be paired, such as the dulce de leche that stuffs these churro-inspired cream puffs. If you've never made choux pastry, watch our video to show you how easy it is to make from scratch.
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Danish Pastry Apple Bars
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Serve these delicious apple pastry bars to really win over the breakfast guests. You'll love that the recipe can make 32 bars, and they'll love the crunch of the hidden layer of cornflakes.
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Best Donuts
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This classic pastry recipe from the 1953 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book is our favorite. We've updated the donuts to use butter (and more of it) instead of shortening, but kept its classic cinnamon-nutmeg spice.
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French Market Beignets
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Originally developed in New Orleans, these elegant, fried French pastries are dusted with a generous coating of powdered sugar. Fun fact: The word "beignet" is actually French for "fritter."
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Apple-Toffee Tartlets
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Get all the goodness of a caramel apple with this delicious blend of apple chunks, toffee bits, and brown sugar. A buttery pastry shell holds it all together for the perfect bite.
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Chocolate-Almond Croissants
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Start with purchased crescent roll dough to make these tender, rich pastries in just 35 minutes. A dark filling of almond paste and chocolate makes these treats bakery-worthy.
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Danish Kringle Pastry
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Danish Kringle is a holiday tradition. This homemade pastry recipe is stuffed with almonds and apricot fruit spread. A drizzle of icing and sliced almonds is the perfect finishing touch.
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Lady Locks
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Instead of heading to the local bakery, whip up this lady lock recipe with just 45 minutes of prep. We'll walk you through exactly how to form the classic shape and make the homemade pastry cream filling.
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Autumn Fruit & Maple Custard Slab Tart
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This pastry dessert recipe feeds a crowd and is stuffed with a cranberry-pear filling. The shortcut here is frozen puff pastry and a spread of mascarpone cheese. One BHG home cook called this pastry recipe, "really, really good."
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Gluten Free Coconut Cream and Pineapple Cream Puffs
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A dough made with brown rice flour is the start to this gluten-free pastry recipe. Use corn start in the coconut filling to keep the entire recipe compliant. Roasted pineapple rounds out the filling and adds more sweetness.
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Shortcut Sugar Buns
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Have a homemade pastry for breakfast on the table in under an hour. Roll up swirls of sugary puff pastry to create a flaky sweet that's perfect for breakfast, brunch, or dessert.
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Fried Apple Hand Pies
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If you don't want to fry this apple pastry recipe, don't worry! Our Test Kitchen developed an air fryer method that results in crisp, golden pastry pockets. Finish the dessert with a drizzle of vanilla icing.
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Spiced Apple Tarte Tatin
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This shortcut pastry recipe calls for just five ingredients. We love the flavor of Braeburn applesin this dessert recipe. If you can't find them, try using Honey Crisp or Granny Smith apples.
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Jam-Filled Hand Pies
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A flaky homemade pastry dough is the start of this easy dessert. Stuff the pockets with either jam or chocolate hazelnut spread. Use cookie cutters to create shapes on the finished pastries.