Trader Joe's 4 Cheese Pastry Rolls

And after a little break, I'm back with more reviews. A little break does the soul good. And with that, there are some really good (and bad) items hitting shelves. Yes, Trader Joe's 4 Cheese Pastry Rolls are good. But if you follow the directions on the box you are going to not be too happy with this product.

The directions

Ok, before I even dive into the taste of this product. The directions are so wrong it isn't even funny. They give you oven directions. That's wonderful. Just pop them into a cold oven and they'll come out perfect, right? Wrong.

I have an electric oven. By the time my timer was based on the directions on the box, my oven wasn't even up to temperature. And because of this, I needed to add another 10 minutes to the cooking time. And out of the oven they were just ok. And for those of you with gas ovens, let me know how the directions worked for you in the comments section.

I've had to buy 2 boxes of these to work through the directions. Yes, I've tried letting them rise overnight, cooking them in a pre-heated oven, and finally, the air fryer got the best results each time.

Air fryer directions

So in order to get the most out of these preheat your air fryer to 325F. Once pre-heated. Spray the bottom of the tray to ensure nothing sticks. Place 2 in the basket. Cook 10-13 minutes.

This method yields results you can't hope to replicate in your oven.

The taste

First, if you remember the now discontinued Trader Joe's Cream Cheese Brioche Pastries, then you might be familiar with the filling used here. If you never got a chance to try those then this is basically a sweetened cream cheese filling. But instead of brioche bread, you are getting what will remind you of a croissant.

Now, if you are following the directions you might be disappointed with this product. I know I was. It had potential when I bit into it but I knew it could have been better. Because my electric oven takes its sweet time with getting to temperature it took 10 extra minutes. It was also very small and dense. I had made 2 this way expecting the directions to work.

Since I had 2 more, I had 1 that I let rise until it doubled in size and the one extra one went into the air fryer.

After letting it rise, it was better, but still was lacking.

Then the air fryer was a revelation. It didn't rise much but the layers were distinct. The only problem was I had put the air fryer up to 350F which was still far too warm. Yes, in 13 minutes mine were close to burnt.

The next box I bought was all air fryer experiments. I found that 325F worked the best. So did preheating your air fryer.

The taste here wasn't as dense. The layers were light and flakey. The top got a nice caramelization which I didn't notice making this the other way. Each bite was delicious. It made a slight mess with each bite with the break flaking off. But there was a nice ratio of filling to bread.

The filling was sweet but just sweet enough to not be off-putting. And again, I didn't even notice the outer layer had a fine layer of sugar which seemed to only caramelize for me in the air fryer at the lower temperature.

But this item is a treat. I just wished someone had tested out the directions a bit more thoroughly. A lot of people may be expressing unnecessary disappointment in the product because the directions might fail them.

Cooked properly, this product was delicious. Following the directions led me to believe this product was just meh.

The packaging

Packaging is minimal here. All four rolls are in the box with no extra plastic packaging.

Overall

Would I buy this again? Yes, I would buy Trader Joe's 4 Cheese Rolls again. For $4.79 these are a solid value and delicious. And yes, the trick here is to make it in the air fryer.

Did you try it?  Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Product photos

The box: