Nutella Pastry Puffs

1. Gather the ingredients. Pre-heat oven to 400 F.

2. Lightly flour a board or countertop and lightly roll out the thawed pastry dough to about half its original thickness.

3. On one-half of each piece, spread about 1 tablespoon Nutella or other chocolate spread, leaving a small edge on all sides. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons hazelnuts over the Nutella.

4. Most frozen puff pastry comes as two sheets folded in thirds (like a letter). One of the thirds can be broken off and cut in half to form two pastries. Cut the other two-thirds of pastry perpendicular to the fold, into four sections.

5. In a small bowl, whisk together an egg with 1 tablespoon of water until well blended.

6. Brush this egg wash on the empty edges, then fold the second half of the pastry sheet over the Nutella side and use your fingers or fork tines to pinch closed.

7. Brush the tops of each pastry with the egg wash and sprinkle granulated sugar on top.

8. Make two slits with a sharp knife through the top layer of pastry. Place on a cookie sheet. You may also line the sheet with parchment paper if you wish.

9. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown and puffed. Serve warm.

More Ways to Use Nutella and Puff Pastry 

If you like yeasted puff pastry (as for croissants and Danish pastries, etc.), see step-by-step instructions for easy Danish pastry dough.

Do You Know the Difference?

All but the filo dough mentioned below are known as laminated doughs because they consist of many thin layers of dough separated by butter produced by repeated folding and rolling. But which is which?

• Puff Pastry: Made with flour, butter, water, and salt, this dough is achieved by rolling packets of butter between packets of dough many times by rolling and turning.

• Blitz Puff Pastry: This faster version of traditional puff pastry also is made with just flour, butter, salt, and water. It is also known as rough puff pastry or flaky pastry. Some of the butter is incorporated into the dough meaningless rolling and turning is necessary.

• Danish Dough: This coffee cake and sweet roll dough are made with puff pastry that is leavened with yeast.

• Filo Dough: Although filo dough can be substituted for puff pastry in some recipes, the results will not be the same but still tasty. Filo is not a laminated dough like the others mentioned above. It is made with flour, water, and fat that is stretched to size rather than rolled.