Cream Cheese and Pepper Jelly Bites
The holidays are upon us and that means so many things, including being overwhelmed with things to do: shopping for gifts, wrapping gifts, getting the family together for a Christmas card picture, mailing out that Christmas card, holiday parties, dinners— the list goes on! Your inbox might be flooded with invitations to holiday parties for the next three weeks, and you never want to show up empty handed. If you need to bring an appetizer, look no further than these.
3 ingredients, 15 minutes— it’s really that easy!
This is a spin on the classic block of cream cheese topped with pepper jelly that your mom would set out with some Wheat Thin crackers. But am I the only one who noticed how hard and awkward that is to try to put on your plate at a party? This takes the classic delicious flavors of that appetizer and morphs it into an easy to prepare, one hand hors d’oeuvre!
Cream Cheese and Pepper Jelly Bites (makes about 32 bites)
1 package Pepperidge Farm puff pastry (contains 2 sheets)
1 block of cream cheese, at room temp
1 jar of pepper jelly of your choice (I’ve used several brands with this and they all worked well! Stonewall Kitchen has a great one that you can find in most grocery or gift stores, or even Marshall’s/TJ Maxx)
Note: Let Puff Pastry come to room temperature for about 30 minutes before starting this recipe. You don’t have to do this but the sheets will be easier to mold into the mini muffin tins and will be easier to cut.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Slice the puff pastry into 1.5 in thick strips and mold to fit into a mini muffin tin (I did 18 at a time because that’s about how many I got out of each sheet in the box).
Bake the puff pastry plain for about 5 minutes.
Remove from the oven and add a scoop of cream cheese and a scoop of pepper jelly to each puff pastry.
Put back in the oven for another 3 minutes.
Serve fresh out of the oven. Easy as that!
The holidays can be stressful enough as it is, so don’t let bringing a dish to a party send you over the edge. Bring these bad boys and your crowd will be raving— and you don’t have to tell them how easy it was!
Cheers,
—Bess