Keto Cream Cheese Danish

This danish surprised me at game night! A friend who bakes sourdough picked one up and asked how I got it that light, and it’s ALL the whipped whites. Softens if it sits out too long though!

Hey Annie, I’ve been baking off your site for about a year and it hasn’t let me down yet. I made these Saturday morning and the texture is genuinely pastry, not the eggy thing I was bracing for. One honest note, I lifted mine off the pan while they were still warm and two tore right down the middle. Let them cool all the way first.

I was a Sunday morning bakery person before going keto, the kind of regular with a standing order and a preferred table. Danish were usually part of it. I stopped going about two and a half years ago and filed it under things I just wasn’t going to have anymore. The meringue base is what makes this work in a way other attempts don’t. Regular keto pastry dough is dense where danish is supposed to be airy, and the whipped whites actually fix that. Lemon does a lot in the filling, keeps the cream cheese from sitting heavy, so the whole thing comes out light. Made this Sunday morning with coffee and I ended up sitting there longer than I needed to.

Protein powder in a pastry dough was where I almost stopped reading. Figured anything with that on the ingredient list would taste like a protein bar no matter what else went in. But the yolk and almond flour hold up in the meringue without weighing it down, and the cream cheese filling has enough lemon tang that it actually comes together like a real danish. Didn’t expect that from something built around egg whites.

Tried a couple other keto danish recipes before this. Most collapse or taste eggy. The meringue dough here actually holds up, and the filling is sweet enough to feel like the real thing. Not quite bakery danish, but close enough.

I only have vanilla protein powder, not unflavored. Would that throw off the flavor, or would it be fine since there’s already vanilla extract in the recipe?

I’ve been making these on Sunday as part of my weekly breakfast prep, and the meringue dough had me nervous because I figured it would deflate or go rubbery by day three. Stored them on parchment in an airtight container and they’re still holding shape by day four. The filling actually tastes better cold, more like a proper cheesecake bite than when it’s fresh out of the oven. One note: I use monk fruit and scaled back the sweetener slightly in the filling because of the cooling finish, which helped a lot.

This was a hit with my fiancé who has recently decided to join me on the low carb side of the fence! He LOVED these. I did add a lot more sweetener to everything because that how we roll. But otherwise it was a beautiful and delicious sweet treat that could be served at any occasion! Next time I wanna try some keto jelly as others posted, and maybe experiment with the different types of icing that could be drizzled on top. But honestly very good as it is!

ALSO: I love this app! It’s the first time I’ve ever made a recipe from it, but I guarantee you I’ll be bookmarking it. Thank you for the easy step-by-step instructions, layout and pictures! A new favorite! Thank you!

Was not convinced whipping egg whites into a meringue was going to give me anything resembling a danish, but the second these came out of the oven I got it. That filling, the lemon coming through just slightly, it tastes like something from a bakery case.

Fourth time making these and the meringue dough still kind of blows my mind. Folding the yolk mixture in feels like it should wreck everything, but it just doesn’t. You end up with something actually light, not dense-and-pretending-to-be-light, which is basically every other keto pastry I’ve ever made. That little hit of lemon in the filling is the detail that makes it taste like it came out of a real bakery case.

My daughter asked if she could take these to her spring fundraiser breakfast. Coming from the kid who sniffs out every keto swap I make, that’s the review I needed. The cream cheese filling is rich and that tiny bit of lemon makes it taste like actual danish, not a recreation.

Added a splash of vanilla to the meringue itself (not just the filling) and it tasted like an actual bakery danish.

That little bit of lemon in the filling is what got me (it’s exactly how the danish from the bakery near my parents’ house tasted) and I thought I’d given that up for good.

Stirred a spoonful of sugar-free raspberry jam into the filling. With the lemon juice already in there, it works surprisingly well. Didn’t mess with the texture either.

I’ve never separated eggs before and was fully prepared to mess this up, but the meringue came together better than I expected (hand mixer on the lowest setting, took maybe 3 minutes to get stiff peaks). Watched it puff up in the oven and kept checking through the glass like I was waiting for test results. The cream cheese filling set up perfectly and the whole thing actually looked like what I thought it was going to look like, which felt like a real win for a first attempt. One question: mine deflated a bit after cooling, is that normal or did I fold too aggressively when combining the yolk mixture in?

Ok so I stirred a small spoonful of strawberry jam into the cream cheese filling before piping and now I cannot go back. It marbled through the cheesecake center and looked like something you’d pull out of a bakery case, which felt absurd on a random Tuesday snow day. The egg white meringue situation had me nervous before I started (I’ve collapsed meringue-based things before) but the shell puffed up beautifully and the outside got this thin crisp layer while the inside stayed soft. My husband came into the kitchen and asked what I ordered. We went through the whole batch before noon. I’m going to try blueberry jam next time and honestly I think this is going to be a standing snow day tradition.

Delicious? YES! But such a frustrating recipe to follow. Why not give the ingredients and then the method like other recipes do? I ended up using my three egg yolks in the pastry, then not having one for the filling, so I added a tablespoon of chia seeds. Yes, it worked, but why give the recipe this way? It made it more difficult and time consuming. I added a touch of almond extract as well as the vanilla as well. Very eggy, but delicious and guilt free.

This was great but my dough turned out very runny and baked flat. Maybe my meringue wasn’t stiff enough?

I was wondering if you have ever added an extract to the dough? Almond or vanilla?

I think this is one of the best keto recipes I’ve made! Thank you for sharing it with everyone!