Cruffins and Kouign Amann Pastries

I love croissants and Danish pastries, in fact, any kind of sweet treat that involves lots of lovely layers of flaky pastry!

Cruffins are that curious hybrid, the love child of a croissant and a muffin.  I love them because they have those flaky croissant layers yet are compact enough to hold and eat as they have that neat muffin shape!

Kouign Amann (pronounced queen Amarn) are Breton pastries that are similar to croissants. They have a layer of sugar in the dough, and are baked in a unique shape with four distinct corners.

While the dough for both these pastries is not identical, they are close enough for me to use one batch of croissant dough to create cruffins and Kouign Amman. And both pastries can be baked in a muffin tin.

I essentially made a croissant dough and used 1/4 dough for each type of pastry. I layered one dough portion with sugar, and used that for the kouign amann, while the other dough portion I merely had to shape into cruffins before baking. So you end up with 6 cruffins and 6 Kouign Amann. Just double the quantities for 12 of each.

So here is my simplified recipe for both delights. You can find lots of variations, some quite complicated for both, online, but I wanted recipes that were reasonably simple and not too technically challenging. The Kouign Amann recipe is adapted from Emma Christensen’s helpful post from her Kitchn blog.

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1/4 batch croissant dough *(recipe follows below)
1/4 cup icing sugar for dusting

Icing/glaze
1/2 cup icing sugar
Juice of 1/4 lemon
1 tbls raspberry fondant creme (optional)
1 tsp freeze dried raspberry powder (optional)

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Generously butter a 6 or 12 hole muffin tin.

Roll out your pre-prepared croissant dough to a long rectangle, about 1/2 cm thick. Cut it in half lengthways if it is too big to deal with. Cut strips of dough again lenghthways, about 10cm wide, using a pizza cutter or sharp knife. The strips can be wider, the wider the strip the higher the cruffin. The trick is to have dough, once rolled, big enough to rise high, but not so big that they flow over the muffin tin without support.

Carefully roll up each strip starting from a short end (10cm end), fairly tightly. Place each roll cut side up in a muffin hole. You should get around 6 cruffins.  At this stage you can leave to prove as is, or wait, as  I did, to fill the other muffin holes with kouign amann pastries.

Place a large plastic bag over the tin and leave to prove for about an hour, or until the cruffins have grown in size.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C.

Once proved, bake for about 30 minutes until the cruffins are puffed up and a rich golden brown croissanty colour. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Remove the cruffins to a wire rack or large plate. Drench with 1/4 cup icing sugar while still warm.

For the icing, mix the icing sugar, lemon juice raspberry fondant creme if using, to make a dribbly sort of icing/glaze. Using a pastry brush, paint the cruffins with the icing/glaze. For added artiness and a lovely intense raspberry taste, scatter a little freeze dried raspberry powder over the cruffins.