Shrimp in Puff Pastry with Goat Cheese and Bacon

Circle B Kitchen

These little shrimp are incredibly scrumptious. Below you will find the original recipe from the Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry website. I’ve made these twice now and adjusted the recipe as follows. You can follow the original recipe, but here are the changes that I made...

1. Instead of the cream cheese, I used goat cheese to which I added a couple tablespoons of my Tuscan Herb Salt. (4 oz of goat cheese was plenty)

2. I eliminated the chopped parsley because I didn’t feel it was needed with all the herbs in the Tuscan Salt.

3. I used 3 slices of Welshire Farms turkey bacon

4. I cut the pastry a little wider (closer to ¾ inch). Even though you get fewer shrimp (15 instead of 18), I think they’re easier to wrap and cover better.

Recipe adapted from Pepperidge Farm

1 pkg. (5.2 ounces) garlic & herb spreadable cheese, softened

1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh parsley

2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

18 fresh jumbo shrimp (about 1 pound), peeled with tail left on, deveined and butterflied

1/2 of a 17.3-ounce package puff pastry sheets (1 sheet), thawed (see tip below).

Heat the oven to 400°F.

Stir the cheese, parsley and bacon in a medium bowl. Spoon about 2 teaspoons cheese mixture down the center of each shrimp. Fold the sides of the shrimp over the filling.

Unfold the pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. Cut the pastry sheet crosswise into 18 (1/2-inch wide) strips. Starting at the top, wind 1 pastry strip around 1 shrimp, slightly overlapping the pastry and ending just before the tail. Repeat with the remaining pastry strips and shrimp. Place the pastries onto a baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastries are golden brown.

Puff Pastry Tip: As you know if you’ve worked with puff pastry before, each sheet is folded in thirds when you take it out of the package. I have found that it’s much easier to unfold it if you do this when it’s still partially frozen. If you wait until it’s completely thawed, the pastry will stick to itself and never flatten out properly. So I let it sit out for about 15 or 20 minutes and then unfold it before letting it thaw completely.