Sliiiightly late this week; I may have planned too much over the weekend. Anyway, let’s talk about Fantasia.

When Fantasia was being developed and released, it was highly risky. Vignettes, mostly with unknown characters, animated to classical music? Seems absurd. Well, that wasn’t even the original idea. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was originally conceived as a standalone project to revive the career of one Michael Mouse, whose popularity had been declining. Problem was, this short cost more to produce than Disney thought the company could conceivably make off of it. So they decided to create an anthology. Turns out that it paid off, even if it took 80 years. Audience reception wasn’t poor in the 40’s, persay, but WWII meant that the film wasn’t distributed to Europe. Despite this, it became something of legend, ranking in some critics’ eyes as the 5th greatest animated film of all time.

I knew that I would have to try something equally risky, as well as definitely incorporating “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. My other favorite piece from Fantasia is “The Nutcracker Suite” particularly the mushroom dance segment, so of course mushrooms had to be included. Hence, Star-Shaped Mushroom Puffs. Risky to make puff pastry from scratch and cut it into shapes without butter and filling seeping out, star-shaped for Yen Sid and Mickey, and mushrooms!

For this recipe, you need:

• 5 oz vegan butter (salted and frozen)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 ½ tablespoons vegan butter (unsalted)
• ½ cup lukewarm water, more if needed
• 8 oz vegan cream cheese
• 8 oz mushrooms, chopped
• ¼ cup chopped onion
• ¼ cup vegan parmesan
• 1 tablespoon chopped green onion
• ¼ teaspoon hot sauce (optional)
• 1 “egg”
• 2 teaspoons ground pepper

There’s quite a few brands of vegan cream cheese and vegan cheese. For this recipe, I used Open Nature Non-Dairy Cream Cheese and Violife Vegan Parmesan.

This recipe starts with making your own puff pastry from scratch, but if that feels a little daunting to you, Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry is also naturally vegan and available in the freezer section of most grocery stores.

If you are making your own puff pastry, as I did, be really mindful of the type of butter you’re using. The vegan butter in sticks can be harder to find, but it’s really worth it for this recipe, since it will freeze better than the vegan butter that comes in a tub. The tub butter tends to be softer and harder to work with for this sort of thing. Either way, freeze the butter ahead of time.

You can make the mushroom filling quite easily. Beat the cream cheese, either with a stand or hand mixer, until it becomes smooth. Then, add the mushrooms, onion, parmesan, green onion, and hot sauce and mix everything in. Make sure your mushrooms and onions are chopped pretty finely. You can keep this mixture in the fridge until your pastry is ready.

Now for the pastry. Take your butter out of the freezer, and using a box grater, grate the butter into shreds. Put these shreds back in the freezer while you make the dough.

In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt, then add the softened butter and mix it in with a fork until it looks like breadcrumbs. Gradually stir in the water and continue mixing until the dough comes together. You may need to slowly add more water. Finally, lightly flour a work surface and knead your dough into a ball.

Cover this dough with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

After your dough has chilled, roll it out into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Take half of your frozen butter shreds and sprinkle them over the left two thirds of the dough. Fold the right third (the side without any butter) over the middle section, then the left third over the middle section to create a wallet fold. Turn the dough 90 degrees so that a folded edge is facing you, roll it out again, and repeat the butter and folding process. Make sure you seal the openings to keep the butter from falling out, and once again, cover your dough with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

After your dough has rested, repeat the rolling and folding steps twice more for a total of four folds and turns. Wrap your dough and let it rest for at least an hour.

When you are ready to finish your puffs, preheat the oven to 400F. Whisk together one fake egg of your choice with a tablespoon of water. Roll out your puff pastry into a 16×10 inch rectangle, then cut it in half lengthwise. Spread half of the cream cheese mixture down the center of each rectangle, then brush your egg mixture along the edges. Fold the pastry in half lengthwise, making sure to seal the edges.

If you want simpler shapes, you can slice these long rectangles into 10 pieces each, making sure to reseal the edges on each. For more of a challenge, take a star-shaped cookie cutter and cut your shapes out, again making sure to really seal the edges of each puff. The pro of taking the challenge is that they’re very cute. The con is that you end up wasting more dough.

No matter which route you’ve chosen, place your pastries onto a parchment-paper lined baking sheet, brush the tops of the pastries with your egg mixture, crack some black pepper over the top, and bake them for 20-25 minutes.

For some extra flair, I spritzed mine with edible glitter.

And there you go! Lovely mushroom puffs to pair