Credit: Simply Recipes / Nancy Mock
Have you heard? Brunch season is here! It begins officially with Easter weekend brunch, continues throughout the spring as casual brunches with family and friends, and reaches its peak with Mother’s Day brunches.
I’m always on the lookout for something new and fun to share at Easter brunch, and this year I found it in the form of a four-ingredient pastry. These sweets, known as cruffins, are loaded with cinnamon and sugar, and instead of a fussy dough, they’re made with tubes of Pillsbury crescent roll dough.
Credit: Simply Recipes / Nancy Mock
What Is a Cruffin?
A cruffin is a combination of a muffin and a croissant. It’s made by rolling up laminated croissant dough with fillings and baking it in muffin cups. As it bakes, the dough puffs and grows tall out of the pan, emerging in a cylindrical shape, sometimes resembling an ice cream cone.
Cruffins have a gorgeous browned exterior coated in sparkling sugar, with soft, chewy insides full of flaky layers. Once baked, they can be filled with pastry cream, ganache, and fruit curds. The pastry is part of the family of croissant mash-ups that includes social media-famous creations like the cronut, the crookie, and the tacro.
Credit: Simply Recipes / Nancy Mock
How to Make Pillsbury’s Cruffins
While authentic croissant dough takes days to prepare, this Pillsbury Cruffin recipe made with crescent roll dough is speedy; you’ll be sinking your teeth into the chewy, cinnamony treats in less than an hour. Look for tubes of crescent roll dough sheets, which are easier to use for recipes like this one because they aren’t perforated. You’ll need three tubes in all.
The first time I made these sugary crescent roll cruffins, it was to have them with our afternoon coffee. They were delicious—soft yet slightly chewy, loaded with cinnamon flavor, and crunchy from the sugar. I liked how the layers of dough and cinnamon were visible on the outside, and the dramatic way they puff and fall over themselves.
I think they’ll be perfect for Easter brunch, but I can also see this being a fun baking project to make with my grandson someday. Get ready for some “oohs” and “aahs” when you set out a platter of warm cruffins at the family brunch—they’ll put your cousin’s plain Jane muffins to shame.
Credit: Simply Recipes / Nancy Mock
Tips for Making Pillsbury Cruffins
If you can’t find crescent roll dough sheets, you can use tubes of regular crescent rolls. Unroll them carefully and pinch the perforated seams closed.
Because the dough tears easily, I find the best way to spread the softened butter is with fingers—and it doesn’t have to be perfect. If your butter is very soft, you may be able to use an offset spatula.
Begin checking the cruffins a few minutes towards the end of the bake time, and pull them from the oven as soon as they’re deeply browned and set. This way you’ll avoid overbaking, which will leave them dry.
The cruffins are best eaten the same day you make them, ideally while warm. They can be stored in an airtight container for an additional day, and rewarmed in the oven or microwave.
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