Oh wow, these cruffins are something I discovered when we popped to Cornwall for a few days – puff pastry muffins filled with a custard and jam dollop! I set off to attempt to make these myself and was not disappointed at all by the result! It was really interesting comparing homemade vs store bought puff pastry, but this really does deserve homemade and patience – plus a little experimentation with the shaping! Enjoy it!
Homemade Bakery Style Cruffins
Warm the milk in the microwave on short blasts until it is luke warm, approx 20 seconds should do it, don’t have it too hot. Sprinkle the yeast on top into the jug, give it a stir and leave for 10 minutes until it goes a bit foamy.
Meanwhile in a bowl add the flour, sugar and salt then mix just briefly to make one consistent mixture. In small batches stir in the milk yeast mixture with a whisk, or ideally an electric whisk with dough hooks / stand mixer until the dough all comes together and is smoother in texture.
Put the dough into a clean bowl, cover with cling film and place in a warm place for an hour or so.
Whilst it’s resting, get the butter between two sheets of cling film and bash it with a rolling pin to flatten it, shape it into a square shape approx. 7 inches x 7 inches. Trim any excess to get a good square shape but I found that the rolling pin does help shape it well, just time your bashes! Place in the fridge to firm up.
When the dough is ready, flour a board and roll the dough out into a large square, approx. 10 inches x 10 inches. Place the chilled butter square in the middle of this dough, then bring the sides up to fully encase the butter in the dough like an envelope. Pressing down as needed to completely seal it.
Roll into a large rectangle, then bring one end into the middle, and lift the other end on top of that so it is stacked as 3 layers. Rotate 90 degrees, wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes. Take out the dough, roll it out into a rectangle and again fold back in and rotate 90 degrees, placing back in the fridge for 30 minutes more. Do this step 3 more times and you should be left with a lovely block of pastry!
Use the block in batches, slice it into thirds and keep the other bits in the fridge. Roll it out about half an inch thick into a rectangle and then make inch wide strip cuts of even size. Ideally try to get the strips about 10 inches long. You’ll need 3 strips per cruffin.
Stack the strips on top of eachother using a little water to brush on them but stagger them back about half an inch from eachother as you stack them. The video shows this step well, roll this band of 3 stacked strips up carefully into one big mega spiral and tuck the end under neath. Place in a large muffin tin, repeat with other dough and then once done, allow the cruffins to rest in the tin to increase in size / puff up for a good 90 minutes. As the video shows, that makes quite a difference!
The results will vary, some will look different but that’s what I love about them! Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200fan/220c/425f or equivalent. Bake at this temperature for 5 minutes, then lower the heat to 170fan/190c/375f and keep baking for a further 20 minutes or so, it should be deep golden in colour, make sure you push the baking to ensure they are cooked through.
Leave to cool on a wire rack, they should pop out of the muffin tray fairly easily. Roll the cruffins in sugar if you wish and then optionally serve with jam and custard filled inside (mandatory in my opinion!) but you could just have them as they are and they’ll be just dandy!