“Sugar” Crusted Almond Pastries

This was one of my favorite recipes growing up. As a teenager messing up my mom’s kitchen was my favorite pastime. I loved cooking but hated doing the dishes. And teenagers. I’ll just leave it at that.

My mom had a Pillsbury’s Best of the Bake Off cookbook that was my go to for easy recipes. The Sugar Crusted Almond Pastries in that book were one of my top choices. They are very simple, just sugar, slivered almonds, and butter on top of canned crescent rolls. At this point in my life sugar and crescent rolls are out so I needed to work on my own gluten/grain/sugar free version.

The closest thing I’ve had to a crescent roll is the pastries I’ve made with a mozzarella dough. I knew that with that dough I could replicate the pastries I adored. This dough is based off of my Chocolate Crescent Cookies and Cinnamon Rolls with a few minor changes.

These are wonderful with a cup of coffee or tea. I’ll admit that I ate a few for lunch today. It wasn’t the healthiest lunch ever but it was a delicious lunch. Tomorrow I’ll have a nice big salad to make up for it.

My husband also gave these two big thumbs up. He’s not a big dessert guy so when he’ll eat a second and a third of something I know it is good.

Scroll to the bottom for a printable version of this recipe.

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“Sugar” Crusted Almond Pastries

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

35 mins

Total Time

45 mins

 

Servings: 12 pastries

Author: Taryn

Ingredients

Pastry Ingredients:

• 4 oz mozzarella
• 1 oz cream cheese
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup Local Blend Baking Mix equal parts coconut flour, almond flour, and golden flax meal
• 1 tbsp Trim Healthy Mama Gentle Sweet or my sweetener blend of xylitol, erythritol, and stevia
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 egg

Topping Ingredients:

• 1 cup slivered almonds
• 2 tbsp butter softened
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp Trim Healthy Mama Gentle Sweet or my sweetener blend, divided

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a small baking sheet. Mine is a 7 x 9.5 toaster oven size. An 8 x 8 baking dish would work as well.
2. Put cheese in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave one minute. Stir. Microwave 30 seconds. Stir. At this point all the cheese should be melted. Microwave 30 more seconds until uniform and gloopy (it should look like cheese fondue at this point). Mix in the egg, almond extract, 1 tbsp sweetener, and baking mix. You may need to knead it by hand to thoroughly incorporate the ingredients. Once it is a uniform color press it out into the baking pan.
3. You can use the same bowl to mix the almonds, softened butter, and 1/4 cup sweetener. Spread this out on top of the dough. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the remaining 2 tbsp sweetener.
4. Cool for at least 10 min. Cut into squares and serve.