Do you trust me?
I promise. Not until I wrote out all the details of this recipe did it seem like any sort of trouble at all. Sometimes I wish we could just talk out a recipe, rather than my writing it out. Here's why it's no trouble: You can (should) make the pastry cream ahead of time. You can make the puff pastry dough ahead of time. Use half for something else, and freeze the rest. Then use that rest for these pretty little Danish.
Instead of straight-up gluten-free puff pastry, if you've got, like, some time on your hands, try my gluten-free yeasted Danish pastry dough for a super authentic Danish. But I used straight-up puff pastry, since (true story) I had a full recipe of it in my freezer.
Once you have the puff pastry and once you have the chilled pastry cream, here's all you need to do. I shall illustrate the recipe in photos, and then express it in words. The photos are for realz. It's this easy.
If you get this far, then brush with the egg wash, you should totally refrigerate the unbaked pastries, and then bake them off first thing the following day (or 3 days later!). A warm and flaky apple Dane with cinnamon and nutmeg in the morning, alongside a steaming cup of coffee or apple-spice tea, is a thing of beauty.
Gosh I love Fall. The air smells sweeter, and I swear to you that everyone is better-looking. I myself am much more likely to be looking for a good cuddle in the Fall. Even though my husband always suspects me of just being after his body heat. He's not right, but he's also not wrong.