Puff pastry Chicken

Good evening ya'll! Tonight's recipe is Puff Pastry Chicken (formerly Kaytucky Chicken, cause I think that's a weird name). First things first... Here is the original link. The lady does a great job with lots of pictures, but I like my version better because it will be a bit more specific and I've modified a couple of things
http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/kaytucky-chicken

Ok now onto my take on this delicious dish. Lets see... You combine, Chicken, bacon, cheese, puff pastry, and a couple of other things. What's not to love? Its got bacon in it so it has to be good, right? In terms of difficulty, I'd say on a scale of 1-5 with one being easiest, I'd give it a 2 only because you have to work with the puff pastry and I managed to mess it up the first time, but since mine didn't turn out perfect I can guide you so yours does!

Puff Pastry Chicken

Ingredients:
4 chicken fillets
4 frozen puff pastry sheets (I like Pepridge farms)
4 oz cream cheese (I used 1/3 reduced fat)
6 slices of thick cut bacon
1 c.chopped Spinach
1/2 c. 2% Cheddar cheese
2 spring onions (can use 1 big one instead)
1clove of garlic crushed
1 large egg
pepper
salt

Remove the puff pastry from the freezer 40 minutes before you need it (or aprox. 25 minutes before you start this recipe because if you're like me, you'll take ~15-20 minutes to do the rest of these steps). Remove the puff pastry from the package and place on a cookie sheet so the 2 sheets/box don't thaw and stick together.

Just like so!

Pre-heat oven to 400F
Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry it up in a skillet, or microwave, etc. Just cook it and crumble it! I turned the bacon out on a paper towl to try to get any excess grease out of the bacon.

This is 4 slices cooked. Clearly not enough! I should have used 6, so that is why I am suggesting 6 to you all. Mmm, Bacon!

 Chop up the onion and put in a medium bowl with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, bacon and garlic and mush around with a fork. Then add the spinach and smush together with a fork until everything looks like everything is covered in cream cheese.

Cream cheese mix BEFORE smushing in the spinach

All mixed and separated into fourths for convenience

Now the tricky part. Unfold the puff pastry and place a chicken breast in the  middle. I buy my chicken breasts from Costco, so they are already thin. The original recipe shows these thick breast where the lady slices them in the middle and stuffs them with the cheese. Doesn't work with Costco chicken. You slice the middle of these babies and all you have is Holy chicken. So I chose a wrapping method that worked fine. If your breasts are thicker (not trying to be personal here, sheesh!) you can butterfly them or do like the original recipe asks.

Put 1/4 of the cream cheese mix in the middle of the chicken

Fold the ends of the chicken up

AND THIS IS WHERE I WENT TERRIBLY TERRIBLY WRONG... folding up the puff pastry

 Looks pretty, huh?? I thought so too! BUT, if you put that much puff pastry on top, then you get raw puff pastry in the middle which has the consistency of paste. You know the kind! What you ate in Kindergarten? Don't lie, you tried the paste too. I know you did it! Anyways...

 What would be better is to cut off 2" of puff pastry from all sides, or fold the puff pastry over the chicken and crimp it so you only have 1 layer. You could even cut the puff pastry in 2 smaller squares (or rectangles, whatever works) and put on on the bottom, one on top and crimp the edges. Either of these would work so long as you only have 1 layer of puff pastry on top & one on the bottom. You'll see what I mean later, but for now onto the rest of the cooking.

Beat the egg in a bowl and brush on top of the cute pastry packets.

 Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes. Since I have a wonderful gas stove, I require the full 50 minutes, but its nice and crisp on the outside and cooked on the inside. If you use electric be careful you don't over brown the pastry and have raw chicken in the middle. You could try to put a meat thermometer through into the chicken and check to make sure it reads 165F, but the 50 minutes did it for me.

See how pretty! Looks like a french pastry! YUM YUM! (at least that's what I thought until....)

Yep, that's right! Uncooked puff pastry in the middle! YUCK!

 So my brave readers, learn from my mistakes! And only have one layer of puff pastry all around the chicken. But doesn't that look good in the middle??? It was still delicious with the uncooked pastry and all!

As always, thanks for reading! Feel free to comment or ask questions and I will try to answer to the best of my abilities.
Happy eating!