What you may ask is a Cruffin? Since the Babes are Baking Cruffins this month, that would be a fair question. In simplest terms a cruffin might be a cross between a croissant and a muffin but it is neither a croissant nor a muffin. Mostly what you need to know about a Cruffin is: they are insanely beautiful and taste marvelous! That’s really what a Cruffin is BUT if you want to know more details check out Aparna’s post at My Diverse Kitchen.

There is an art to writing a recipe BUT there is an art to reading a recipe as well and clearly I am woefully lacking in reading skills. Perhaps my math is just as lacking. The recipe Aparna gave us clearly stated “this recipe makes 8 cruffins” … I ended up with 17. Can’t read, can’t count.

My cruffins are dark – I used half white whole wheat with half regular AP flour and brown sugar – and I’m ok with that. I will admit the BBB’s who bake with white flour got a gorgeous gourmet picture perfect golden cruffins. I’ll settle for the subtle caramel flavor I get with the brown sugar.

Cruffins

Recipe by Aparna from My Diverse Kitchen

This recipe makes 8 Cruffins (see it said it right there)

For the Dough :

25 grams brown sugar (this was just sweet enough for us)

1 1/4 tsp dry yeast

100 grams white whole wheat flour

101 grams white AP flour

50 gm unsalted butter, chilled

1/4 tsp salt

183 oat milk (did not use any water but used all oat milk)

For Lamination :

120 gm unsalted butter, at room temperature

To Decorate/ Serve :

Speculaas spice/Cinnamon sugar

DIRECTIONS :

I add the dry yeast directly to the flour with other ingredients.

 In a medium bowl mix together the flour, yeast, sugar, salt and chilled butter cut into small pieces. Add milk and knead into a soft and elastic dough that comes away from the side of the bowl. The dough should not be sticky. Add a little more milk or flour, as required to achieve this consistency of dough. I found I needed at least half cup more of regular AP flour to obtain a soft supple dough that was not sticky.

Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to an oiled bowl, turning the dough to coat it well. Cover and let the dough rise till double in volume. This should take between an hour to two depending on ambient temperature. Mine took about an hour and 45 minutes.

In the meanwhile prepare your baking pan and keep aside. Butter and very lightly flour the cavities of your muffin or popover tray.

Dust your working surface lightly with flour and turn the dough out. Lightly knead to deflate the dough. Divide into four equal pieces. Roll out each piece to a 60x20cm (24X7 inches) sized piece. The dough sheet will be very thin. If you have a pasta machine you can use that as it is easier to roll out thin sheets with it. I cut the dough into two pieces (60cm x 40cm each) and cut into 4 pieces after buttering each.

Spread about 30 to 38 gm butter (I started with 150 grams of butter and had 50 left) of soft butter over each rolled out piece of dough. I sprinkled half with cinnamon sugar and the other half with speculaas spice. Cut each piece into half, lengthwise, creating two thin strips.

Roll one thin strip into a tight roll. Place this at the edge of the second strip and continue rolling till you have one thick roll. This will give your cruffins more layers.

Cut roll in half lengthwise. Roll each half, like a circle (cinnamon roll style)with the cut layers side showing the outside. Make sure to tuck both ends under so it doesn’t open up on baking. Place the roll in the prepared muffin or popover pan.

Repeat with all the dough pieces. Cover the pan with a kitchen towel and allow to rise for about 45 minutes. The rolls should look puffy and have risen to almost the edge of the cavities.

Bake the cruffins at 190C (375F) for about 30 minutes or till golden brown and done. My smaller size baked in about 24 minutes. Turn them out onto a rack and let them cool. I skipped toppings and thought they were just perfectly delicate and sweet enough. Serve warm with coffee or tea.

My Cruffin were small (17 instead of 8) and more brown than golden but still insanely beautiful and marvelous tasting with coffee in the morning, hot tea in the late afternoon, coffee in the morning, hot tea in the late afternoon … oh gosh, it’s time to bake again as I know you will want to do. I want these again with my morning coffee … and my late afternoon tea!

And I do thank you just very much for cruffins Aparna!