I love creating great recipes with puff pastry. This spinach pineapple braid is filled with fresh spinach leaves, sweet pineapple and tasty bacon. You just have to love this combo! Yummy! It is easy as pie to work with puff pastry; especially if you buy it already made. Thanks to its versatility, you can make from sweet, salty or veggie to fruity puff pastry creations.
This recipe is really easy and it serves 4-6 portions. No matter how perfect you cut the strips, fill the braid or do the braid, the spinach pineapple braid will still be a big success. Give it a try!
Ingredients for spinach pineapple braid:
- a roll of puff pastry dough
- ½ pineapple (fresh)
- ca 3 handfuls of spinach (fresh)
- 100 g bacon cubes
- olive oil
Wash the spinach and leave it to drain on a paper towel. In a small frying pan prepare the crispy bacon. Simply add the bacon cubes into a hot pan and wait until they’re crispy. Occasionally, you might flip them around. If you don’t eat meat, skip the bacon step.
The last ingredient that goes in the puff pastry braid is the sweet pineapple. I prefer to use a fresh pineapple to a canned one. A fresh one is more sweet and juicy. So, cut the pineapple in half. You can use the other half for something else; like a smoothie or salad. Then cut off the skin, remove the middle part (which is usually hard to chew) and cut the pineapple into cubes.
Now comes the fun part. Try to be fast, in order to keep your dough chilled and not too stretchy. Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Unroll the puff pastry dough on a baking paper on a baking dish. Place it in front of you, so that the short side is facing you. Try to divide it visually in three parts (three columns). Start adding the filling to the middle part, by leaving 1 cm space at the top and bottom. First place the spinach leaves, then the crispy bacon and at the end the juicy pineapple.
How to make a puff pastry braid:
Now you should have “uncovered” dough on the left and right side of the filling. With a sharp knife cut the strips 2 cm apart. It is easy and it takes less than a minute to do it. Start 2 cm from the top and nicely slide the knife from the filling to the right (if you are cutting on the right side) or to the left (if you are cutting the left side). Continue cutting the 2 cm wide strips on both sides until you reach the bottom.
Furthermore, fold in the 1 cm at the top and start folding the strips alternating sides. Imagine doing a hair braid. One strip from the left, one from the right until you fold the last one. I didn’t bother if there was some space left in between the strips while folding them. It looked more rustic like that. At the end fold in the dough at the bottom.
A quick tip; if the dough doesn’t stick properly, simply apply some water on it with the tip of your finger. Like I said before, the strips and the braid don’t need to be perfect. The spinach pineapple braid will still be a masterpiece. You can brush the braid with some egg or olive oil before baking it. Then put the baking dish in the oven on the middle rack for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve this delicious spinach pineapple braid warm or cold, for a snack or brunch, for dinner or lunch.
Enjoy!
