Easy Cheese Danishes
These Easy Cheese Danishes use a shortcut (crescent roll dough) to make your favorite bakery pastry at home. So simple and delicious!
A SIMPLIFIED WAY TO MAKE CHEESE DANISHES
Do you remember a short while back I posted a recipe for Easy Apple Danishes? Well, I got such great feedback from that recipe that I had to try my hand at some cream cheese ones. So I decided on a yummy cream cheese filling – and butter my butt and call me a biscuit – I was surprised at how good these turned out. So this one is for all you cheese danish lovers!
TIPS FOR MAKING CRESCENT ROLL CHEESE DANISHES:
- If you don’t need so many danishes, just use one tube of crescent rolls and save the leftover cream cheese filling for another time. Just put it in a container with an airtight lid and store in the fridge for up to a week.
- Try adding strawberry or raspberry jam along with the cream cheese. It adds amazing flavor!
INGREDIENTS NEEDED (FULL RECIPE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST)
- crescent rolls
- cream cheese
- granulated white sugar
- vanilla extract
- butter
- light brown sugar
- powdered sugar
- milk
HOW TO MAKE EASY CHEESE DANISHES:
Preheat oven to 350F degrees. In a medium bowl, combine softened cream cheese with white sugar and vanilla extract. Mixture should be creamy and smooth when finished (like cheesecake batter.)
Separate crescent roll dough into eight rectangles. Seal perforations to make a rectangle.
Using a brush or spoon, spread melted butter all over crescent rolls. Sprinkle each rectangle with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.
Roll up from long side; pinch edges to seal.
Holding one end, loosely coil each one.
Now you want to get in there with your fingers and spread out the dough some to make room for the filling. Just pull and stretch and make a nice dent in the middle. Place on cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Top each coil with about 2 tablespoons of cream cheese filling.
Bake at 350(F) for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. For the glaze, in a bowl, combine powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Stir until smooth and drizzle over each warm danishes.
Cook’s Note: If you don’t need so many danishes, just use one tube of crescent rolls and save the leftover cream cheese filling for another time. Just put it in a container with an airtight lid and store in the fridge for up to a week. Makes 8 danishes.
CRAVING MORE RECIPES?
- Pumpkin Danishes
- Easy Apple Danishes (+Video)
- Strawberry Cheese Danish
- Cherry Crumble Danishes
- Crescent Cherry Cheesecake Cobbler
- Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars
- Blueberry Cheesecake Crescent Rolls
Easy Cheese Danishes
Ingredients
For the danishes:
- 2 (8 ounce) tubes crescent rolls
- 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- ¼ cup granulated white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons salted butter, melted
- 8 Tablespoons light brown sugar
For the glaze:
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 teaspoons milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F) In a medium bowl, combine softened cream cheese with white sugar and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Separate crescent dough into eight rectangles (there will be two crescent rolls to each rectangle.) Seal perforations.
- Using a brush or spoon, spread melted butter all over crescent rolls.
- Sprinkle each rectangle with about 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar.
- Roll up from long side of the crescent rectangle; pinch edges to seal.
- Holding one end, loosely coil each.
- Spread out the dough in the middle some to make room for the filling.
- Place on cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Top each coil with about 2 tablespoons of cream cheese filling.
- Bake at 350(F) for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown.
- For the glaze, in a bowl, combine powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Stir until smooth and drizzle over each warm danish.
Video
Notes
- It’s important that the cream cheese is fully softened to room temperature. If it isn’t, it will end up lumpy.
- Salted or unsalted butter can be used. I prefer salted.
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
“The Country Cook” is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. If calorie count and other nutritional values are important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever online nutritional calculator you prefer. Calories and other nutritional values can vary quite a bit depending on which brands were used.
Originally published: June 2011
Updated & republished: July 2020
I think I'm in love!!!!!! I spend ridiculous amounts of money on berry and cheese danishes. This will definitely be a hit! Now if you can come up with something close to Ben and Jerry's strawberry cheesecake ice cream before I go broke buying it I would be a happy lady!
Ps. Made your make n cheese delicious
This recipe looks amazing. Has anyone commented or have you tried to use Fat Free Cream Cheese and Reduced Fat Crescents? I may try that this weekend. If I do I will let you know the way they turn out.
These look yummy! I am curious though, have you ever tried spreading the cream ch. filling on the crescents before rolling them up? Would it work the same way, or is the filling too soft to stay inside that way?
Congrats on winning the Shortcut Recipe contest from Gooseberry Patch! I will have to make these!! I LOVE cheese danishes and haven't indulged in one in ages.
These are to die for!!! Made them last night and they are already gone! Thanks for an awesome recipe! It's a keeper!!
Hey, I found you on pinterest. I love this recipe!
so what if you were to add a little lemon curd with the cream cheese & make a lemon cheese danish? mmm, you do have something pretty cool here, lots of possibilities!
Thanks for sharing so generously!
Tried these this weekend and they were very good (and easy to do as you said). Pillsbury has a "light" crescent roll, which I used, and also substituted Neufchatel for the cream cheese–like to cut a few calories where I can without compromising on taste.
Made these this morning after finding it on pinterest. They were fabulous, all 4 of us agreed! I made 2 minor adjustments tho, traded splenda for sugar and used about 1/2 of brown sugar just because I'm trying to cut back. This is definitely a keeper!! Thank you!
Hi Anne!! Thank you so much for letting me know how they turned out for you. So glad to hear you liked the taste of them with Splenda too!
I love Danish but my favorite would be coconut custard Danish use to have a recipe for them but cant find it..would you happen to have a recipe for them??? please help Love all recipe I have tried sooo far…keep them coming..thank you
Amazing Recipe! They actually do taste better than store bought! I ate one gooey out of the oven and thought this recipe was good enough to keep but when I ate one later at room temp….Oh man, DELISH!!!! These would make a great dish for company as well. Thanks for the recipe! 5 stars!
Oh my favorite made easy! love it thanks.
I just saw your recipe tonight and had all the ingredients in the house. Hubs was looking for something sweet for dessert so I tried them out. He's loving every bite. Thanks so much!
Erin, I'm so glad you found your way over here from Pinterest! Happy to have you here and I'm so happy to hear you loved this recipe!
Thank you for this recipe! I found this site on pinterest. I made it tonight. It is delicious! I only made 4 because I only had one tube of crescent rolls. My husband and I each had one for dessert and will be having one each for breakfast in the morning. Such an easy recipe and it was the best cheese danish I've had in a long time! Thank you!
Thank you so much for posting these. I made them last night. I just wanted to say they are easy and soooo yummy. I made them with the crescent rounds and was a worried because they looked so small right out of the package, but they do spread out well when you put the melted butter on them and spread them out with a spoon and they puff up quite nicely in the oven. I would say mine turned out about 2 1/2 – 3 inches round.
Yay!! So happy to hear they turned out good for you!!
I am definitley gonna try this over the weeeknd…
Thank you so much Brandi! So happy you like them!!
These are a MUST try!! As I type, they are fresh out of my oven and they are heavenly!! Thank you so much for such a fantastic and super easy recipe!!
Wow, these look amazing! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your wonderful recipes with us!!
I'm drooling!
Made these tonight for my husband to take to work tomorrow… I don't even want to send the rest!! So easy and SO good!!
THESE WERE GREAT – THANKS! MADE THEM TO YOUR RECIPE.
I know what you mean about emails. I don't get them or comments hardly on my blog. I do get a few comments but not many. So I understand how excited you were!
Man this recipe simply sounds awesome! I have GOT to try this because I LOVE cream cheese danish! I think Splenda is even making brown sugar these days to. 🙂 Going to print this one out!!!! lol Thanx for sharing!!!!