Really quick "Danish pastries"

I've never made any made any dainty pastries, as I do not have patience nor the skill to make pastries. Or so I thought until flicking through Lorraine Pascale's Home Cooking Made Easy I realised if I follow her cheats recipe, using puff pastry, shop-brought custard and apricot halves, I can make something that resembles Danish pastries. Now my pastries did not turn out at elegant as the picture in the recipe book, but hey, I'm not a trained pastry chef. What's important is they tasted delicious!
Here is how my Danish pastries turned out:

Quick danish pastries.

Danish pastries.

I first started by gathering all the ingredients together and rolling out the puff pastry.

Ingredients for Danish pastries

Rolled pastry

I cut the pastry into 7.5 cm squares and make diagonal cuts from each corner to within 1cm of the centre and placed a dollop of custard and apricot halves in the centre and then folded the alternate corners, brushing the tips with egg.

Pastry square

Folded pastry

I placed the pastries in the fridge to firm up in the fridge for 15 minutes. I baked for around 20 minutes until they were firm and golden brown.

Ingredients - Makes 12 small pastries
1 x 375g packet of puff pastry
Plain flour, for dusting
1 x 220g tin of apricot halves
300g thick custard
1 egg, lightly beaten, for the egg wash.
Sugar for sprinkling.

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C (425F), gas mark 7. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to a square 30cm by 30cm. To make the windmill, or what are sometimes called Imperial stars, cut the pastry into 7.5cm squares and make diagonal cuts from each corner to within 1cm of the centre. Put one or two apricot halves in the centre of the square and spoon over a little ready-made thick vanilla custard, then fold alternate corners of each cut section down to the centre, brushing the tips with beaten egg.
Place them into the fridge for 15 minutes or so until they are firm. Remove them from the fridge, brush them with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar, then place the pastries in the oven. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until they are firm, risen and golden brown.
Remove them from the oven and leave to cool.


xxx