CHAMOE JAM + CREAM CHEESE PASTRIES

With these pastries, my new house (re: tiny, shared apartment) became a home! A lot has happened in the last few months - graduating, visiting the motherland, moving to a new city, starting a new job - and it has been a whirlwind trying to adjust to all of the changes happening at once. With only a few days between each destination, not to mention jet-lag, I was constantly packing and unpacking my life into a few suitcases. But I’m finally settled in enough to start baking again! 

While I was moving into my new place, I visited some extended family in the area. My aunt gave me a ton of food, including several chamoe, or Korean melon. They’re hard to come by, so these gems were super exciting to receive! Crisp, juicy, and sweet, these are the perfect summer fruit when chilled, but I also wondered if I could somehow incorporate this unique fruit into a dessert. As coincidence would have it, one of my favorite baking blogs posted a recipe with chamoe a couple of days later! Had to try it.

Since I’m in a new place, I’m still trying to figure out the temperament of all my cooking tools. The sugar almost started to burn when making the jam (I hate electric coil burners), and the pastries turned out a tad darker than golden from the oven. But the recipe itself is super easy and self-explanatory, and my co-workers liked the pastries despite it all! If you don’t have chamoe, you can use honeydew or cantaloupe instead. I still haven’t ordered a hand mixer, so I opted to use store bought puff pastry sheets, which made these that much easier. Feels good to be back to baking!

Chamoe Jam + Cream Cheese Pastries

From Two Red Bowls

Makes about 12 pastries

1 Korean melon (chamoe), rind removed, deseeded (see Notes), and chopped (or roughly 1 ½ cups of your favorite melon, chopped)

½ cup sugar, divided (or more, to taste)

½ tsp to 1 tsp lemon juice, divided (optional)

4 oz cream cheese

1 egg, beaten

¼ tsp vanilla extract (optional)

1 lb puff pastry, storebought or homemade

To make jam: Simmer melon with 6 tablespoons of the sugar for 8-10 minutes, or until melon is soft and translucent and bubbles are thick and viscous. Stir in ¼ tsp to ½ tsp lemon juice, if desired. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To make cream cheese filling: Whisk the cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of sugar, half the egg (about 2 tablespoons), ¼ tsp lemon juice, and ¼ tsp vanilla extract (if desired) until smooth. Whisk the remaining half an egg in a small bowl with a splash of water or milk, to make the egg wash.

To make pastries: Thaw the puff pastry if using frozen storebought pastry, or prepare a batch if making from scratch. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Working with half the pastry at a time, roll out the puff pastry and cut into roughly 2x4" rectangles. On half of the rectangles, place a teaspoon or two of the chamoe jam and a teaspoon or two of the cheese filling (if cheese filling is runny, do cheese first then jam). Dab the borders with egg wash. On the other half (the “lids”), score the centers of the rectangles with a sharp knife, then place over the rectangles with filling and seal the edges with the tines of a fork. You may want to stretch the lids slightly to ensure that they fit over the filling. Brush the lids with egg wash and sprinkle with additional sugar, if desired. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until pastries are golden and puffed.