Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

The healthiest way to start your day is with a hearty breakfast rich with fiber—fruit, whole grains, a bean dish or two if you’re super serious about it. But the best way to start your day? A buttery, crispy, flaky, cheesy, and sweet puff pastry treat. Hello, cheese claws! They’re like the steamy, hot love child of a cheese Danish or bear claw and a turnover.These delicious numbers take all of about 15 minutes to put together, and they’re a great way to show off your <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/puff-pastry">homemade puff pastry</a>. (You can use store-bought puff, too, though!)On a more practical level, this recipe illustrates the best practices to ensure that all the distinct layers of dough are preserved even as you shape and mold and cut puff pastry: keeping the dough and the filled and shaped pastries cold; resting the dough as necessary to relax the gluten; working quickly; egg washing the dough before baking to give it a burnished, golden glow; and cutting the dough straight down, instead of slicing or pulling when making cuts, to separate the individual pastries without smushing the layers into pasty mush.

Sweet Cheese Claws